


A Pretty Good Bad Idea

by akamarykate



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Community: smallfandombang, F/M, Small Fandom Big Bang, Small Fandoms Bang Round Five, fake married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:25:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 75,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6677788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/pseuds/akamarykate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We don't have the budget to pay two detectives on this assignment. Besides, you need someone you can convincingly pass off as a husband. Someone who will make it easier for you to blend in and be involved with the community."</p><p>The shoe that had landed on her head lodged in Toni's throat. There was one person who fit that description, and things tended to go ass over teakettle when he got involved with their cases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pretty Good Bad Idea

**Author's Note:**

> This story makes reference to an earlier fic, [And Baby Makes Three](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1464544/chapters/3085657), but you don't have to have read it to understand what's going on here.
> 
> Bazillions of thanks to [Jayne L](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JayneL/pseuds/Jayne%20L), Beta Ninja Extraordinaire, for support and comments and saving me from myself, and also for the use of your couch as a writing desk for a few days.
> 
> Thanks to [Amilyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amilyn/pseuds/Amilyn), who campaigned for this prompt and helped so much with background info about Chicago locations and neighborhoods. (Happy birthday!!)
> 
> Shoutout to Magpie, who slept on top of me while I worked on revisions. Her Royal Snuggliness kept my head from exploding more than once.
> 
> And finally, many thanks to [Gryph](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryph/pseuds/Gryph) for the wonderful art! I mean, look at this book cover. It makes me smile every time.

Toni walked into the station house humming. Not her usual MO, but for once her day was off to a decent start. She'd taken the L, and walking the last few blocks from the stop through the newly cool fall air had been almost as good at waking her up as the triple shot latte she'd picked up at a deli. Of all the things she liked about Chicago, the sweltering Augusts were pretty low on the list, and it was a relief to hit mid-September and know ninety-degree days were done. 

It didn't hurt her mood that she had a date lined up for tomorrow. Technically it wasn't a date; she and Hobson were meeting Rachel Pemberton and her daughter for a picnic in Garibaldi park. A few months ago, they'd protected Rachel and Addie from a mob family together, and they'd stayed in touch, mostly at Hobson's urging. It wasn't exactly WITSEC protocol, but she wasn't a Marshal anymore, and Rachel needed some support re-establishing her life. Toni wasn't sure which she was looking forward to more: hanging out with Rachel or watching Hobson become completely engrossed in playing with an eleven-month-old. The prospect made today's mountain of paperwork easier to face.

She caught the desk sergeant staring as she passed him with a wave, and swallowed the next few bars of the song. She didn't need tomorrow's paper to know what Winslow would assume if he heard her.

Tomorrow's paper. What was Hobson up to today, and would it put him in the path of Chicago PD? She'd wondered the same thing every day since she she'd found about his magic paper, but she tried not to ask. Involving herself in his knowledge of the future and determination to change it tended to tangle her personal and professional lives in uncomfortable ways.

Preoccupied with her thoughts, with Hobson, she almost ran into the door of her captain's office when it swung open into her path. She bit back a yelp at the slosh of hot coffee on her hand and nodded at Banks's curt, "Morning, Detective." His gaze flicked over and behind her. She took the greeting for the dismissal it was meant to be and kept moving, but not without a glance over her shoulder. Captain Daniel Mulcahy, Chief of Detectives down in the South District, was shaking Banks's hand.

"Hey, Brigatti." Winslow had a tiny smirk at the corners of his mouth, which wasn't unusual. Smug asshole was his default. "What, no coffee for your partner?"

She deliberately slurped the drops that had landed on her hand. "This stuff's too good for you." Banks's office door clicked shut behind him and his visitor as she shrugged out of her jacket and settled her things at her desk. "What's Mulcahy doing here?" He didn't answer, just stared at her as if he were a kid at the Field Museum gaping at the T-Rex.

"Winslow?" She reached across the aisle and snapped her fingers in his face. He blinked, and his frat-boy features settled into a familiar smirk.

"You walked in here singing."

"Humming," she corrected. Too late. "I talked to my grandmother last night and it reminded me of an Italian lullaby she used to sing about the leaves changing color. Seemed like a good day for it."

"Talked to your grandmother," he tried—and failed--to deadpan. "Is that what you're calling hanging out with Hobson these days?"

"Nonna Brigatti would wash your mouth out with soap for what you're implying. And your brain if she could find it." Toni tapped a stack of papers to straighten them. "For which she'd need a magnifying glass. You have the Showalter file?"

Winslow handed her a file an inch thick. "It's all yours. I'm going to go refill my swill." He sauntered off, swinging his mug from its handle on one crooked finger. The Italian song he was humming sounded a lot more like "That's Amore" than "The Colors of Autumn."

He wasn't going to get to her. She and Hobson—Gary—were moving forward at kind of a snail's pace, but they were moving forward. Her punk partner wasn't going to derail it, and she wasn't about to tell him whether they'd so much as brushed hands when she'd stopped by McGinty's for a drink after talking to her nonna. 

"So why's Mulcahy here?" she asked when he wandered back with his coffee.

"Dunno. But he walked in with an armload of files, so I suspect we'll find out before too long."

Toni kind of hoped they would. She hadn't had an interesting case land on her desk in a few weeks, and until it did she was stuck catching up with paperwork and scheduling court appearances to finish the job of locking up the crooks who'd kept them busy all summer. The only advantages to the lack of work were that she could almost see the top of her desk, and that Hobson hadn't been sticking his nose into dangerous situations, at least not those that involved her. The less often he showed up when she was working, the less she had to explain about their relationship to Winslow, Paul, or anyone else at the station. Until she could figure out exactly where they were heading, she preferred it that way.

Half an hour later, Banks strode out of his office, looking over the bullpen as if he were searching for an exit He ran a hand through his shock of steel-colored hair, and his sharp gaze landed on Toni. His shoulders drooped a little bit as he inclined his head toward his office door. "Join us, Detective."

Before Toni could shoot a smirk of her own across the aisle, Winslow asked, "Called to the principal's office, huh? What'd you do now?"

"You're just jealous. Have fun with your paperwork," she snapped back over her shoulder.

"Close the door behind you," Banks said when she walked into his office. He indicated the man sitting in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. "You know Chief Daniel Mulcahy?"

"Yes sir." Toni shook the man's hand while Banks moved behind his desk. Like Banks, Mulcahy was in plainclothes, a neat navy suit that almost fit him and a striped tie that was just straight enough to convey his authority, just loose enough to show how comfortable he was in the role. "We met while we were cleaning up the fallout from the Guyette case."

Both men grimaced at that, and Toni mentally kicked herself for bringing it up. "Fallout" had meant putting cops from both districts in jail for collusion with a mob family. 

"He needs some help with a cold case," Banks said as they all sat, "and he thinks you're the woman for the job." 

The way her captain said that—not quite meeting her eyes, slight emphasis on, "he thinks," kept Toni from easing back into her chair. Whatever Mulcahy wanted, Banks wasn't sold on the idea.

"A couple of cold cases, actually." Mulcahy tapped a pile of folders on Banks's desk. "Maybe more."

"I'm intrigued." Banks's barely disguised reluctance to involve her piqued her curiosity, and the fact that it was a cold case leant her an odd sense of relief. If the case was too old to show up in Hobson's magic paper, he wouldn't have any reason to interfere, which would minimize the risk of exposing whatever it was they were building together to her colleagues. 

She studiously ignored the voice inside her head asking why she now included Hobson in her professional calculations. "What's the case?"

Mulcahy glanced at Banks before he handed Toni the folder on top of his pile. "Death from almost a year ago. Didn't look suspicious at first. Hell, it didn't even cross my desk until two weeks back."

The file contained a photo of a woman laid out on a coroner's slab and the medical examiner's report. Jessica , twenty-six, anaphylaxis. September 26, 1999. "She was killed by bees?"

"Yellowjackets." Mulcahy said. "She was outside sweeping her patio and hit a nest with the broom, got stung right away. She was allergic to bee stings, so she must have figured she was in trouble. Got inside and called 911 but died before they could get to her."

"And you think this was murder?"

"Her EpiPen was empty, but there was no injection site. No epinephrine in her bloodstream. Husband insists he'd checked the yard and house the day before and seen no sign of the nest."

Toni tried to imagine someone planting a nest of yellowjackets on a porch and tampering with a medical device. "It seems like a lot of trouble to go to in the hopes she'd come into contact with the yellowjackets. The husband would have the easiest access."

Mulcahy handed her another picture. A wedding photo, perfectly lit, of the same woman and a man with curly brown hair. Jessica Singer's smile was big, exposing slightly crooked teeth; her husband's steady gaze was fixed on her. If it hadn't been perfectly lit, perfectly framed, Toni would have suspected he didn't even know there was a photographer, or anyone else in the world. "Aaron Singer's still making noise about this being a murder a year later. If he'd wanted her dead, I have to think he'd let everyone believe it was a tragic accident."

"The husband brought you this case? Does he have some kind of pull?" It seemed like a reach for a captain to be investigating a case as thin as this one.

"Indirectly." Mulcahy exchanged a look with Banks, one that Toni couldn't quite read. "He was insistent from the beginning that something hinky had gone down, but nobody who knew Jess Singer seems to have had a motive to kill her. The rest of her family chalked Aaron's theory up to denial and grief. But then he talked to one of his neighbors, Jim Byrne. Ex-cop, made it as far as lieutenant. Lives a couple blocks over from where the Singers did. He was a mentor to both of us when we were coming up through the ranks," he said, indicating Banks. "He asked me to look into it."

"And into a few other deaths," Banks said. His lips had the same slightly disgusted twist they got when one of his detectives—usually Winslow—took off on a wild hare of a case.

"That's where the rest of these files come in." Mulcahy nodded at the pile. "Jim thinks there might be a pattern. There's been a string of fatal accidents in the neighborhood off and on, going back ten years or so. There's no proof, of course, and they might very well be accidents, but--"

"Your instincts tell you different," Toni filled in.

"Jim Byrne's did." 

Toni nodded, but snuck a glance at her captain. What was the catch here? Was he uncomfortable with bringing her in because he thought it was a waste of time, a final grasp at an exciting case by a bored ex-cop? Banks was not the kind of guy to go chasing unicorns, but if Byrne had mentored him, he was more likely to take his concerns seriously. Still, she couldn't imagine Banks wanting to put any of his detectives on this if he didn't see a possibility that something underhanded was going on.

"Look, Detective Brigatti, I know what you're thinking." Mulcahy leaned toward her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "People die in their homes all the time, all over the city. Accidents, health problems, and once in a while, maybe a murder. But this kind of thing, no gang involvement, no problems in the marriage or with the family or her job, that's just not likely. Jessica and Aaron Singer were both teachers. We've interviewed coworkers, students, neighbors. No one seems to have hated her enough to kill her."

"What about the others?"

"The one thread they have in common is that they look like accidents. None of these people died the same way, and none look suspicious until you realize they're all equally unlikely, and they've all happened within a three-block radius."

"So you think the same person killed them all?"

"Hard to say."

"Maybe there's something in the water," Banks said wryly. 

Mulcahy pulled the pile of folders into his lap, holding them up one by one as he listed causes of death. "Melinda Sheffield, forty-two years old, 1991. Fell asleep and drowned in the tub. Trevor Sharp, professional chef, 1994. Ate the wrong mushrooms. In 1995 Jeff Simpson died of blunt force trauma when a large mirror that had been installed over his fireplace fell on his head. Two years ago, Zahid Durrani was taking out the trash when a second story deck collapsed on top of him. There are a few other possibilities, but those are the most suspicious. I'll let you look through the files and Jim's notes, but I tend to agree with him. There's something not-quite-right going on."

"Sounds like the neighborhood's more cursed than—" Toni stopped. What exactly was this guy suggesting? She settled for, "—targeted. Unless you can work out a reason someone wanted all these people dead, it's going to be hard to build a case."

"That's where you come in." Mulcahy glanced at Banks. "We want to bring you in on this because you're relatively new."

Toni didn't miss Banks's slight flinch. Was that because Mulcahy had included him in "we" or because he'd called Toni new? She'd been part of his team for nearly two years, and she'd more than proven herself. "I'd be happy to look at the files and give you a fresh perspective."

Mulcahy shifted in his chair, eliciting a sharp creak. "I actually need more than that. If these really are murders, the killer has to be someone who lives there. In the last couple weeks, all the homicide detectives in my department have been involved in questioning the neighbors. A lot of my guys live in that area, too. Whoever the killer is, he's smart. Too smart to let down his guard around Jim or anyone he knows is a cop. "

"Do you want me to interrogate your suspects?"

Banks snorted, the first time in the conversation she'd seen him let down his guard. "The list of possible suspects looks like the cast of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. You want to grill Daniel Tiger, Brigatti?"

"If I thought interrogation would work, I'd be happy to have the help, but I need someone on the inside," Mulcahy said. "Someone who can blend in with the neighborhood and interact with everyone while keeping them comfortable. We need the lay of the land, from someone nobody will identify as a cop."

Toni wasn't sure if that was meant as an insult, but it was definitely part of what was making Banks uncomfortable. He watched her like a hawk, daring her to take offense. She'd learned better than that, though. She let her face go blank. "You want me to go undercover?"

"There's a house in the neighborhood that went on the market last week. Elderly couple who went into nursing home care. It has good sightlines, right in the middle of a block. If you're living there, integrated with the community, you'll be able to find out a lot more than we've gotten with questioning and witness statements."

Was Banks really considering this? He knew undercover work wasn't Toni's favorite, nor was it her strong suit. "Are you sure I'm the best person for this job?" she asked, addressing the question to her captain. He shot her a funny look, kind of a shrug with his bushy brows, before Mulcahy went on.

"We've crafted a cover to take care of any doubts they might have. You'll pose as a reporter for the Sun-Times."

Toni's mind, which had been trying to process everything involved in an undercover op to look for a possibly nonexistent murderer, skidded to a halt. She pressed her lips together. She couldn't react, couldn't do anything that would give away her connection to that particular paper. Her voice was reasonably steady when she asked, "A reporter?" 

"Crime desk. That will give you a reason to drop by the station once in a while, and to talk to cops. You can claim to have an irregular schedule and work from home, where you can keep an eye on the activities of any suspects. We'll set up the bedroom at the front of the house for surveillance, even get warrants to search or bug your neighbors if they seem suspicious."

Toni tried to set aside her own defensiveness about the cover story and Mulcahy's reasons for choosing her. For a cold case, it was fairly intriguing. Usually those involved weeks down in storage and a lot of lists and graphs. At least this way she had a snowball's chance of investigating interesting deaths, even if the connections among them did turn out to be all in an ex-cop's head. "How long will this take?"

Banks and Mulcahy exchanged another loaded glance. Maybe this was the other shoe she kept waiting to hear drop. "That's what I don't know," Mulcahy said. "If we don't have something in a couple weeks, a month at the most, we'll pull you out. But I'm hoping you're a good enough cop to figure it out before that much time passes."

Toni swiveled in her seat so she was directly facing Banks. "With all due respect, sir, it feels like there's a catch to this." 

To her surprise, he nodded. "We need you to be fully integrated and accepted in the neighborhood as quickly as possible. No one will believe you could have bought a house down there on the salary you make as a reporter."

"And Beverly is a family neighborhood," Mulcahy added. "Great mix of older and younger couples, lots of them with kids. They're more likely to talk to you if you seem like one of them. You'll blend in better if you're married." 

The second shoe landed on Toni's head with a thud. She could pull off the reporter cover. Ask a lot of nosy, inappropriate questions and no one would be the wiser. But adding another person to her cover would complicate the situation exponentially. "Won't putting two of us on the case increase the chance of the killer making us?" 

"Not so long as you can maintain the cover story," Mulcahy said.

They must be thinking of someone else from the North District, someone the people down in Mulcahy's jurisdiction wouldn't know. Someone single, like her, who could put a huge amount of time into establishing a cover. No wonder Banks was so hesitant about this. "Sir, I cannot pretend to be married to Winslow. We almost strangled each other the last time we had a three-hour stakeout. If we have to live together I promise you I will kill him."

"Not Winslow," Banks assured her. "You're not that good an actress."

"Meryl Streep isn't that good an actress!"

Mulcahy cleared his throat. "We don't have the budget to pay two detectives on this assignment. Besides, you need someone you can convincingly pass off as a husband. Someone who will make it easier for you to blend in and be involved with the community."

The shoe that had landed on her head lodged in Toni's throat. No wonder Banks had reservations about this. There was one person who fit that description, and they both knew things tended to go ass over teakettle when he got involved with their cases.

At least she hoped that was the reason he'd hesitated. If he knew how much further things had gone between her and that person, how far she hoped they would go at some point in the near future, she'd implode with embarrassment. Her corpse would sink through the chair into the deepest sub-basement of the building.

"Hobson?" she choked out.

"Better the devil you know," Banks said weakly.

If Mulcahy understood what was going on between Toni and her captain, he ignored it. "I was talking to my buddy Zeke Crumb the other day. He recommended you for this—for just about anything, actually. Something about you helping him bring in a fugitive from one of his old cases."

"Joanne Cranston," Toni filled in. Her mind was spinning on another case, another undercover assignment that Hobson had butted in on with some flimsy excuse about the wrong nametag. At least that time it hadn't been on CPD's invitation.

"The bank manager, yeah," Mulcahy went on. "Crumb had a lot of good things to say about you and the guy who helped him out in that case, and Glen here told me some more about him."

Toni raised an eyebrow at her captain, trying to gauge how much Banks actually knew about her and Hobson. Trying to keep her racing pulse from betraying her. Trying to figure out how she could object to this without giving everything away.

"I told him how Hobson helped you out with the Iceman, and with that baby on the Guyette case," Banks said smoothly. He leaned forward, elbows on his desk. "You need someone you can work with. Someone who knows enough about what you do to stay out of your way while you do it. Someone we can trust who doesn't smell like a cop. Someone who will seem natural around you, because frankly Brigatti, when it comes to undercover work you need all the help you can get."

"What about Paul?" She was grasping at straws and she knew it, but she couldn't think of any other way out of this. 

"He's working the Bevins case, and besides, I don't think his wife would take too kindly to him leaving her for a few weeks with their toddler. Granted, Hobson's an unconventional choice, but unless you want to give it a shot with Winslow, it's the best answer we have."

In the history of bad ideas, this was the worst. Toni could feel all her assumptions about what she and Hobson were building toward crumbling under the weight of it. But how could she object without revealing to her captain that Hobson was more than a weirdo who occasionally provided information and help to the department?

"You don't need to actually marry him, Brigatti," Banks said. "Just make it look like you did."

"You would be doing a huge favor to me and to my entire district," Mulcahy said in the slightly condescending tone that meant he thought he could rope her in by promising her he'd owe her one, though he was probably sure she'd never try to collect on a superior. 

She looked down at the file open on her lap, at the wedding photo, ridiculous and beautiful because Jessica and Aaron Singer hadn't been playacting. Whether or not Jessica had been murdered, they'd run out of time far too quickly.

Toni took a deep breath, let it out slow. There was no arguing her way out of this, not unless she divulged the full extent of her relationship to her superiors. "I'll see if Hobson's available," she finally said.

"Bring him in tomorrow afternoon," Mulcahy said. "We'll meet with our team and fill him in on his role. As long as he agrees, we can have you set up in the house by the end of this weekend."

And her day had started so well. 

* * *

"Smile, Hobson. You'd think I was forcing you into this."

"You are." Gary smiled anyway. How could he help it, even though he knew he was going to have to cut the afternoon short because of the paper? Toni leaned against him and flashed a lopsided grin at Rachel Pemberton. Or maybe it was Rachel's daughter Toni grinned at; Rachel had set Addie down to take the picture, and Addie was crawling toward them at top speed, her dark curls bouncing as she plowed through the grass. 

"So what's going on?" he asked when they moved under a huge oak tree for a few more shots. 

The tense way she held her shoulders when she shrugged and said, "I want to show you off to my parents," convinced him she was lying. She grabbed his hand and lifted his arm so she could duck under it, wrapping her other arm around his waist. "Look like you want to kiss me or something."

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" He did want to kiss her. He spent every second he was around Toni Brigatti, and a lot of the ones he wasn't, wanting to kiss her. For starters. The camera clicked as he looked down at her, trying to figure her out.

"Let me do one more." Rachel nudged her escaping daughter with her foot, trying to turn her back toward them. "Gary, try not to squint so much." 

Toni insisted on taking one with Addie draped over Gary's shoulders, and one of the two of them holding her hands and swinging her gently between them. Addie shrieked and gurgled with glee, but despite Toni's constant insistence that Gary needed to look natural, look happy, her own smile never turned into the one he was waiting for, the big, full smile that showed her teeth and took up the bottom half of her face.

"These are all for your parents?" he asked when Rachel finally used up the roll of film and handed it over to Toni. Settled once again on his shoulders, Addie pulled at his hair and sucked on the ends, making it hard for Gary to get a good read on what was going through Toni's mind. 

"And my grandparents." Without meeting Gary's gaze, she held out her arms. Addie slid off Gary's shoulders into them. "Hey, Bug, you want to swing?"

"You have any idea what that was about?" Gary asked Rachel. 

"Got me. Toni told me to bring the camera, so I did." She looked from Gary over to the playground, where Toni was settling Addie into a swing. "Everything okay between you guys?"

"I think so." He'd thought so. Now he wasn't at all sure, even though Toni was apparently ready to add him to the family album. 

"Uh-huh." She tucked the camera into the diaper bag, then handed it off to Gary. "Whatever it is, you stick it out with her, you hear me? Having what you guys have, it's worth the ups and downs."

He knew what she meant, and why her tone was so wistful. It had only been a few months since her husband's death, and Gary suspected she was looking for at least some of what she'd lost by pushing him and Toni together. Not that either of them were particularly resistant. "Yeah, thanks, you're right. Whatever she's up to, I'm sure we'll work it out."

"Good, because I'm pulling for you guys to make it." Rachel gave his arm an affectionate pat and trotted off after Toni and her daughter, leaving Gary to trail in her wake. 

That was pretty much all he did for the next hour. He carried Addie among the trees on his shoulders, pushed her in the swing, and helped her totter around the sandbox while holding onto his fingers, but all the time he felt like he was a step and half behind Toni. Maybe it was the looks she kept shooting him, veiled and assessing, or the way she seemed determined to make sure they weren't alone long enough to exchange more than a sentence or two. Even those offhand bits of conversation about her work and the bar felt loaded. When he asked her if she had any new cases, she gave him a look that he could have sworn was as much terror as annoyance, then bustled off to the picnic table to take over feeding Addie a snack of yogurt and pieces of banana instead of answering. 

When two o'clock rolled around, he started getting antsy. Rachel took Addie over to the swings again, hoping to lull her into an afternoon nap, and when Toni started to follow, Gary grabbed her arm. "I gotta go," he said. 

"Now?"

"If I stay, the Pop Warner football game over in Columbus park will turn into a riot."

"Don't those kids wear pads? How much damage can they do?"

"Not the kids, the parents. Controversial call. Ref gets injured, both teams have to forfeit their seasons."

"Okay." But she didn't move, except to shift from one foot to the other.

"Toni. What's going on?" When she didn't answer, he said, "Whatever it is, I have time for it. I have time for you."

"I need to ask you something." She slid her hand into the pocket of her jeans. He could see her fingers fidgeting. "This may not be the right time, but I don't know that there is one."

He wasn't used to Toni acting skittish. "Spit it out, Brigatti." Maybe he could annoy her over whatever line she was hesitating to cross.

She drew her hand out of her pocket and held it out to him, open-palmed. A man's wedding ring, simple but elegant, with a brushed silver finish, winked at him in the fingers of light reaching through the tree's shade. "You up for this again?"  
"T-Toni?" Her name was the only coherent thought he could get out. Was she really asking him to—they'd been growing closer, and there were the pictures for her family, but he didn't think they were ready for—they hadn't even—

And then his brain caught up with what she'd said, and why that particular ring was so familiar. "Again" wasn't a reference to his first marriage to Marcia. He met her gaze, and the fear had receded; even though she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and sweater, he recognized the steadfast set of her chin, the one he was used to her wearing along with her work suits.

"I have to ask you a favor," she said. "It's a huge one."

She was asking for his help. It had to do with her job, which meant it was a chance to prove to her that they could work together, that they could work. He grabbed her hand, hiding the ring from Rachel, who was approaching with the speed of a bloodhound who'd locked onto a scent. He leaned down and gave Toni a kiss that stopped Rachel in her tracks, that almost stopped his heart beating when Toni responded, warm and so eager she pushed his head back against the tree. She looked a little abashed when he pulled back and grinned down at her; Toni never liked to seem the least bit needy, in any sense of the word. That split-second drew the words that sealed his doom right out of him.

"Whatever you need."

* * *

"I get why you don't want Winslow to be your undercover husband. Nobody would ever believe he could outkick his coverage with someone like you. Plus the two of you together for more than a day would leave me with at least one more murder to clean up. But Hobson?" Paul handed Toni a coffee and took the seat next to hers at the conference table. "You're asking for disaster. You know that, right?"

"I didn't ask for it." Toni sipped at the coffee to hide her wince at the memory of Hobson's face in the park a few hours ago, too dopey and trusting, too willing to do anything she asked. She pushed the stack of files toward Paul. "This was all Mulcahy's idea. And Banks's, for some reason."

"Hobson was their idea?" Paul let out a low whistle. "Ooh, boy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

He fixed her with a shrouded look. "He complicates things."

He had no idea how right he was. At least she hoped he didn't. "It's a cold case. He's only around as window dressing." She took a long pull at her coffee and tried to believe her own words. "Take a look at the files and tell me what you think."

As usual, they were both early for the meeting. Mulcahy had asked Paul, Winslow, and Banks to be there when he briefed Toni and Hobson on the operation. Toni was of two minds about this. On the one hand, they were just handing Winslow ammunition in his constant battle to destroy her very last nerve. On the other, she wanted and needed her team in on this case. It wasn't especially far-reaching or dangerous, but if Mulcahy was right and there was a pattern to the deaths, it would help to have more than just her eyes and instincts searching for it. If there wasn't, she'd have their voices to back her up when it was time to put an end to the charade Mulcahy was asking her to construct. 

She'd spent the evening before going through the files and the hours she usually slept trying to push away the personal issues this raised. Hobson wasn't the one who constantly tried to set a fence between their relationship and her work; that was all her doing. Now she was the one hauling him right through the gate and setting whatever it was they had on display for the whole bullpen to see. She hadn't realized just how impossible a mess she was making until he'd kissed her and promised to do anything she needed. Sure, he'd looked a little rueful when he'd heard exactly what was going on, but he hadn't backed out. He'd just promised to show up to this meeting and run off to save the world. 

What was spending so much time together, living together, going to do to them? Much as she liked the guy, and as much fun as they had together, this wasn't the same as going on a date to the movies or even playing honorary aunt and uncle to Addie. Add in the layer of trying to do her job around the ridiculous messes he got into because of his clairvoyant newspaper, and there were at least a thousand ways this could destroy something that was only just beginning.

"Interesting stuff." Paul looked up from the files as the door opened behind him. "I can see where the old guys are suspicious, but do they really have to bring you into it?"

"She's our best chance to get new intel out of this neighborhood." Mulcahy plopped down another stack of files and sat at the head of the table. "Sometimes us old guys actually do know what we're doing." He turned to Toni. "Do you share Detective Armstrong's assessment?"

That was a loaded question if she'd ever heard one, but then, this whole situation was loaded. "I'm ready to get started, sir," she hedged. Winslow and Banks came in and sat on either side of her, sandwiching her between sass and her supervisor. Great.

"Just waiting on your husband," Paul muttered, and before Winslow could even open his mouth to ask what that meant, Hobson stumbled in, out of breath and covered in grass stains. 

"Sorry, I, uh, there was a—"

"Pickup game in the park?" Toni flashed a glare at Winslow, who pushed his lips together and sat back with a look that said he was going to enjoy the show. She could only hope he'd keep the worst of his impulses in check around the brass. 

"Something like that," Hobson mumbled. Toni had to assume the fact he was just on the other side of late meant he'd been able to stop the parents' fight.

"You're right on time," Mulcahy said. "Thank you for listening to our proposal. No pun intended."

Paul hid a snort in a gulp of coffee. Winslow didn't even bother to hide his. Banks let out a long-suffering sigh as he looked from Toni to Hobson and back. Hobson locked eyes with Toni for less than a second, but whatever he'd seen made him sit up straight. "I'm happy to help the police any way I can, sir." 

Toni let out a little of the breath she'd been holding for what felt like twenty-four hours. Whatever his faults and quirks, Hobson exuded sincerity and trustworthiness. It was probably why so many strangers listened to him when he showed up out of nowhere to save their lives. 

After his initial tumble into the conference room, he barely glanced her way during the briefing, for which Toni was grateful. Winslow was probably writing more notes about their interactions than about the case, and Paul seemed to be on high alert for any hint of a relationship that was more than professional courtesy. They reminded her of her older brothers and the way they used to check out her dates when she invited them to family dinners.

Other than explaining the suspicions surrounding Jessica Singer's death, Mulcahy didn't dole out many details about the case while Hobson was there. Instead, he concentrated on the ins and outs of moving into the house on South Hoyne Avenue, the details of the cover story Toni had helped concoct, and the importance of making contact with the neighbors and appearing to be a normal, friendly married couple.

"We know we're asking you to walk a fine line here, between civilian and professional," Banks told Hobson when Mulcahy finished. "This isn't something we'd normally trust to a civilian, but circumstances being what they are, we could use some help. Given Zeke Crumb's recommendation and your past history with the police in this district, I think you're a solid choice."

Hobson's gaze skidded sideways to Paul, who cleared his throat. Toni wasn't sure if he was signaling her or Hobson. "Given my past history with you guys, I guess I'm grateful for any trust at all." Finally, he looked directly at Toni, one corner of his mouth just barely curling up. "I'll do my best to walk that line."

She wondered if he was thinking of the lines between them, the ones they kept crossing and then rebuilding, the ones she thought they'd obliterated long ago. 

"We can put you on the rolls as a consultant, give you a small financial compensation," Mulcahy said, "but Detective Brigatti will be responsible for the investigation and surveillance. She'll no doubt value your input about any interactions you have with the neighbors, but you're primarily there as a prop. You won't be involved directly in the case—what is it?" he asked when none of the other cops around the table, not even Toni's captain, could keep a straight face at that. Paul let out another snort, Winslow threw his head back and let out a sharp, "Ha!" and even Toni couldn't help a rueful grin when she thought of how not uninvolved Hobson had been in their cases. He'd been underfoot, persistent as his annoying cat, since before she'd signed on with CPD. 

Banks shook his head with a rueful smile. "You keep telling him that," he said to Mulcahy. "Maybe he'll listen to you."

"I thought you were okay with this, Glen." Mulcahy looked a little lost as he tried to read the table. "If you don't think Hobson is the right guy—"

"No, no, it's fine. You can walk the line, right?" Banks asked Hobson.

He shot a guarded look across the table, then turned his focus to the file Mulcahy had given him with the information about the house. "I'll do whatever Detective Brigatti needs, sir." He sounded duly chastised, but Toni understood the double meaning. He'd be there if things went wonky because he'd know about any serious problems beforehand, just like he had in the past. Paul and Winslow could give him a hard time about that, but now that she knew his secret she didn't have any right or any desire to.

"If we have to use an outsider on this case, there's no one better suited," Toni said firmly. "Hobson knows more about how this department operates than most civilians, and he's saved a lot of lives, including mine." She tried to use the set of her mouth as she looked at her partners to silently add, Not to mention both of yours. "We can trust him completely."

Why did Hobson look a little shocked at that? Did he think she wouldn't defend him to her colleagues? Did he not know how many times she'd had to do that already? She was so preoccupied trying to read his response that she missed the warning sign right next to her when Winslow's expression turned slightly feral. Before she could kick him, he'd opened his mouth.

"I guess I have to be the one to bring up the elephant in the room," he said. "I mean, we know Hobson here is trustworthy, sure, but are we sure he can be convincing as Brigatti's husband?"

"Shut up, Winslow," Toni growled. Hobson's eyes went round. He looked like a cornered suspect.

"No, now, he has a point," Mulcahy fell right into the trap. "I understand you've pretended to be romantic partners in the past, but there's nothing in your files to indicate how well you did it. We have a wide pool of potential suspects, and you'll need to convince them all that you are a happily married couple."

"I'm sure we can," Toni aimed a delayed kick at Winslow's ankle. He shifted his feet and she hit the leg of his chair. "It's nothing we haven't done before. We'll simply be doing it for a while longer." She stared across the table, willing Hobson to fall into line, to not give away how much of this charade wasn't going to be an act at all. "We're good at faking it. Right, Hobson?" 

He nodded, a bit frantically. "We can do it, sir." 

"As long as it is really an act," Banks warned. "You'll need to keep your focus on the case. No distractions, Detective." 

"No, sir," was all Toni could safely get out.

"I still think you should prove it." Winslow waggled fingers between Toni and Hobson. She fought the urge to smash his hand right into the table. "Put on a little show. So we can all be sure." 

Winslow didn't know, couldn't have known, that the last time someone had pushed her to kiss Hobson, Amber Lamonte had stolen the Harlan Diamond right out from under her nose. She'd left that detail off her official report, noting instead that she and the jeweler had been "distracted by our original suspect's antics." But Toni knew, and there was no way she was going to take a chance on kissing Hobson in front of her bosses. If she'd lost herself in that kiss a year ago, back when she'd hardly known him, how was she going to keep her head now?

And why the hell had her thoughts jumped immediately to kissing?

Hobson must have sensed Toni's rising panic, because he leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "You know what, maybe this won't work after all. I'm not sure I can pretend to be married to this woman. She makes me nuts just ordering a meal when she's at my bar. No mushrooms, dressing on the side, make sure the coffee's fresh, fries better be hot." He shook his head, but Toni spotted telltale crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "The woman's picky about the shape of her ice. I can just about imagine how annoying it'll be to share a house with her."

"Oh, right, I'm picky," Toni snapped back. "As if not wanting cat hairs in my burger and fries makes me a harpy."

"There aren't any cat hairs in McGinty's food!"

"There shouldn't be a cat in your restaurant!"

"Wait a minute," Paul interjected. "Just how much time do you spend at Hobson's place?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Toni caught the way Hobson's mouth opened slightly, then snapped closed. She sat back and flashed a grin at Hobson—there he went, saving her again—and he returned it. "Hardly any time at all, actually," she said. "That was acting, and you all fell for it, didn't you? Convinced?" She felt, rather than saw, Winslow roll his eyes.

"You sound like an old married couple to me." Mulcahy snapped a folder shut and stood, holding out a hand for Hobson to shake. "Welcome to the team."

* * *

Late Friday night, and the handful of customers left at McGinty's were fixated on the end of the Dodgers-Padres game out on the west coast. Gary walked in the front door fully intending to head straight for the shower, but his feet wouldn't carry him that far. They stopped at the end of the bar and refused to go any farther. He slid onto a stool with a grunt.

"Hey, Gary." Marissa was behind the bar cleaning the taps. A.J. was at the other end mixing drinks. Usually one of the other bartenders handled the beer orders, but Gary suspected Marissa had let whoever it was leave early. "I was beginning to think you were spending the night at Toni's."

"Why would you think that?" It wasn't as if he'd ever done that before, but his words came out too quickly, too snappish. He still hadn't shaken his annoyance at Winslow's not-so-thinly veiled jabs during the meeting at the station, let alone his suspicion that he'd said yes to CPD's proposition far too quickly. Toni had shaken his hand with about as much warmth as her captains had before he'd left to save a newsstand owner and a couple of kids on a sailboat from a bout of high winds. He hadn't even had time to really think through what he'd agreed to do.

"Because you two seem to be getting closer." Marissa held out a hand, palm up in a gesture of surrender before a fight could start. "But you're right, it's none of my business." She handed him a full stein. "Long day with the paper?" 

"Sorta." He drank half the beer in one swig.

"That's the new Goose Island fall ale." Marissa's mouth formed a wry twist. "I thought you'd want to taste it, but I guess guzzling is just as good a recommendation."

"It's fine." It was doing its job, numbing the edges of his irritation with the haphazard plan he'd fallen into and with himself for saying yes before he'd known all the details. He knew Toni been roped into it; she'd flat-out told him it hadn't been her idea. But the way she'd looked at him during that meeting, her eyes serious and her jaw set, all her walls in place and thoroughly defended, he was sure she was just as worried as he was.

At first it hadn't sounded so bad, hanging out in a nice house in a residential neighborhood while Toni worked on a cold case. But the more the cops had talked to him about it, emphasizing the need to keep his working relationship with Toni professional and not ask too many questions about the case at the very same time they were telling him he had to put on a good act and make the whole neighborhood think they were comfortably married, the larger his second thoughts had loomed. Hell, there'd been more distance between him and Toni in their awkward good-bye than there had been since she'd socked him in the jaw at Chuck's wedding. The good thing they'd been easing into—and it had been good, verging on great—was in serious trouble.

"We need to get something that's better than 'fine' into our seasonal tap rotation." Marissa propped her elbows on the bar and leaned toward him. "But that's not what's on your mind, is it?"

"No." He took another gulp of the beer. What was on his mind was a pair of dark, endlessly deep eyes and the flash of a tense smile that had been her good-night, along with a floorplan and a list of things to pack. "How do I know I'm gong to be any good at this? I flunked being married the first time."

Marissa's puzzled frown melted into concern, at least around the edges. "Marcia throwing you out does not equal you flunking marriage. Besides, I know you like Toni, but you guys have only been dating for, what, a couple of months? It's not like you have to immediately get hitched, have kids, and move out to some suburb that starts with 'Oak.'"

He couldn't help it—he barked out a laugh. Sometimes Marissa was spookier than Cat. "The thing is, two out of three of those things are going to happen. Tomorrow."

She stood up straight. "What?"

"I mean, it's not Oak Park or Oak Lake or Oak Woods, but it's Beverly, so it might as well be." And it was equally dangerous. He drained the rest of the beer.

"Here I thought I'd known you so long you'd run out of surprises."

"We'd better have this conversation in private." Despite his exhaustion, Captain Banks's stern warnings that undercover work required utmost secrecy still echoed in Gary's mind. He glanced around the bar. "There's not too many customers left, and the kitchen closes in half an hour. Come on up to the loft. I have to see if any of my suits still fit."

After signaling A.J. to take over, he let Marissa lead the way with her cane, though she hardly needed it to navigate McGinty's. He'd just closed the door behind himself when she whirled on him. "You really are getting married?"

He took her hand and slipped the wedding ring, the same one he'd worn when he stumbled into Toni's undercover operation to catch the Iceman, onto her palm. "Not really."

She ran her thumb over the band. "This feels like you're getting married."

"I wish it were that simple." Not that it would ever be simple with Toni, which, if he was being honest, was how he liked it. "We were at the park today with Rachel and Addie, and she hands me this and asks me if I'll be her husband."

"Toni proposed?"

"Not because she wants to marry me. We're going to pretend to be a couple so she can infiltrate a neighborhood down in Beverly where there've been a few suspicious deaths over the years."

The delighted expression on Marissa's face changed to one of avid curiosity. This was why he had to tell her. Once she knew something was up, she wouldn't stop until she had all the details. "Like an undercover operation?"

"Exactly like that." He sighed. "Exactly like something that's going to make taking care of the paper nearly impossible and complicate everything I thought we had figured out between us."

"Why did you say yes?"

"In my defense, I agreed to help before I knew what it was she needed." He pulled the list she'd given him out of his back pocket. "If I'd known this involved marriage and a house and suits, I'd have—"

"You'd have said yes all the same, no matter the complications, but Gary—"

"I know."

"But—"

"I know, okay?" He paced away from Marissa, trying to explain it to himself as well as to her. "You didn't see her looking at me when she was asking. Toni Brigatti asked me for help, not because I butted in on one of her cases at the last minute, not because she was in immediate danger of falling off a roof or something, but because I am apparently the person best suited to help her with this particular case. I don't think she wanted to. It was her boss's idea. But she asked, and that's why I said yes."

"Did you say, 'yes,' or, 'I do'?" Marissa handed the ring back, her teasing grin only half as annoying as Winslow's. Probably because it was twice as kind. 

"Same difference, in this case." While Marissa curled up in the armchair, Gary pulled his one and only suitcase—the same one Marcia had thrown out the window—off the top of his wardrobe. "And now I have to wear a suit and pretend to be a stockbroker and take the Metra into the city every day and come here and help you run the bar, not to mention taking care of the paper. Then I get to go home every evening to the little woman, who is supposed to be a crime reporter for the Sun-Times."

Marissa's eyes had gone wide. "Did you make all that up, or did she?"

"I think most of it came from her bosses." He yanked open his underwear drawer and pulled out a week's worth of boxers and t-shirts. "Marissa, how'm I going to manage the paper and still keep the schedule they expect?"

"Didn't you and Toni talk about that?"

"There wasn't really time." He dug through the back of the wardrobe and extracted a navy suit. "This thing doesn't fit right," he said when he pulled the jacket on over his plaid flannel shirt. "It's hangs all wrong, it always has. And I hate ties. How am I supposed to run around the city saving lives in a suit and tie?"

"Better bring your sneakers," she said dryly. Cat had joined her, and she stroked it from the tip of its nose to its tail. They made an infuriatingly calm pair. "I think what's really worrying you is what this will do to your relationship with Toni, which is totally understandable. You're just starting to figure out what you want to be to each other, and like you said, you've been burned before."

"Oh, thanks a lot." Much as Gary liked Marissa, there were times she reminded him of the cockleburs that used to get stuck all over his socks when he'd go hiking in the fields and woods around Hickory. A little too sharp, a little too determined to focus his attention on her points. 

"None of that was your fault. Think of this as a test. If you two can survive living together while she's on a case, you'll know you can get through those kinds of day-to-day struggles."

"And what if we can't? What if I'm not ready for that kind of test? We haven't even had—I mean, we haven't had a chance to—you know--"

Marissa rolled her eyes. "You haven't had sex."

"No." For the moment, Gary was glad she couldn't see him, couldn't call him on the blush he could feel creeping up his neck. He turned back to the wardrobe anyway, searching for the charcoal suit he'd bought two weeks before he quit Strauss and Associates. "Not that that's the most important thing, but it usually happens when you live with someone. Or before, a lot of times. But her captain lectured me about keeping things professional, which I'm guessing means no fooling around unless the neighbors are watching. I don't think he knows we're dating." He was, in fact, ninety percent sure Captain Banks didn't know, based on the way Toni'd told him over and over again to stay out of her hair while she was working. 

The suit lay on the floor of the wardrobe, crumpled up like a wad of very expensive tissue paper. It didn't fit him any better than the navy one. "How'm I going to do this? I have to pretend to be pretending to do the thing I want to do for real, and around the other cops I have to pretend I don't want to do that thing." He shrugged out of the suit jacket and dropped it into the suitcase. "Maybe around Toni, too."

Marissa tilted her head, brow furrowed as she tried to parse out the mess his life had become. "I guess you'll have to call on your acting skills."

"That was one play in a tiny neighborhood theater."

"And you were great at it. You'll find a way. You said yes because it was Toni, so do it for her."

"I said yes because it was Chicago PD." 

"Oh, come on, Gary."

"No really." He flopped onto the sofa. "I mean at first, yeah, it was her, but they're trying to catch a murderer. A serial murderer, one the paper didn't tell me about."

Marissa went still, suddenly serious. "I don't like the sound of that."

He didn't care whose permission he had or didn't have; Toni at least had to know he'd tell Marissa about this, especially since, unlike his past couple of brushes with the mob, this cold case wasn't likely to put her in any danger. So he told her what he knew, that a woman had died from a sting last year and that a handful of other people had died in unusual ways that might have been staged, but nobody knew for sure. "And that's just the ones they let me know about," he finished. "I guess they told me that much so I don't get hit on the head by a collapsing ceiling or eat a poisoned pizza."

"They really think those were the work of a killer?"

"That's what Toni's supposed to figure out."

"And you're going to help her." It wasn't a question.

"I have to. I never saw any of these deaths in the paper." He glared at Cat, who shot him back a green-eyed, unnerving stare. "I know it doesn't always show me everything, and the ones that look like health problems I can kind of understand, but if there's a killer going around causing accidents, shouldn't I know about it? Shouldn't I have stopped them?"

"I don't know." A helpless note had crept into Marissa's voice, echoing what he felt. "But you can't stop what you didn't even know was happening."

"Yeah, well, you want a reason I'm doing this, that's it. If I couldn't save these people, the least I can do is bring their families some justice."

"I understand." She snuggled Cat a little closer. "As long as you understand that whatever the paper's reasons for not leading you to help those people, their deaths were not your fault. I don't want you taking stupid chances because the paper sent you to save someone else the days those deaths happened."

"I'll be fine. I know to watch my back." And Toni's. He was definitely going to be on alert for anyone messing with her. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Marissa shuddered. "Don't give the universe any ideas."

* * *

Toni took a good long look at the house as they sat idling in the department-issued Honda Accord, waiting for the moving van. "It's cute," she said. Not to mention completely terrifying. A brick bungalow that had been built in the early 1900s and remodeled every few decades since, it sat back from the street in the middle of a green yard with a tree in the front and two in back. The wide, shaded front porch had a huge swing, complete with cushions, so she'd have a perfect excuse to be outside observing the neighborhood on nice days. The rest of the house was simple: kitchen and living and dining rooms downstairs, two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. She'd memorized the floor plan in her frantic cramming. "You have to act like you've already seen this with the realtor," she reminded Hobson. "Enough people have been through it that we can make our story believable, but only if you don't stumble around like you've never seen the layout before."

"Yeah, I got it." He pulled the car into the driveway they'd share with their next-door neighbors. Past the houses it branched into a Y-shape and ended in their two garages, separated by an unkempt row of shrubbery. Mulcahy had insisted Toni let Hobson drive if they ever used the car together, because it would "look more natural" to anyone who might be watching. She'd relented, but only after an eyeroll that would have earned her a written reprimand if she hadn't been doing the guy such a huge favor. "I do know how to do this, Toni. I've lived in houses before."

Toni pushed away the tiny voice that whispered, "But not with me." Sure, they'd shared hotel rooms a couple times, but it wasn't the same. Instead she repeated the rules she'd decided they needed to make this thing work. "Remember, this is more than an extended stakeout. This is an act, and we have to sell it, but it's also a job. We can touch and kiss in public, but we have to keep it professional behind the scenes, because we'll never know when someone from the station might show up."

"Wouldn't that blow our cover?"

"Not if they stick to theirs. Winslow is a tech guy from the Sun-Times who'll be here today to help set up my home office. Paul is one of my sources at CPD. I'm sure Banks and Mulcahy will find ways to check in on us, too. They're putting a lot of resources into setting us up, and everyone is worried about corruption after the last year or so."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Can't really blame them for that. Between Savalas and the Guyettes it's a wonder they trusted me."

"They trusted you because you helped us out of both those messes. Don't give them any reason to regret that. No mention of your paper around anyone, cop or not. I don't even want you carrying it around in your back pocket if you can help it." His mouth twisted into a hard knot, but he nodded. 

Toni let some of her anxiety out in a sigh. He shifted in the driver's seat so they were facing each other. "Look, Hobson, I'm sorry. I know this isn't—"

He held up a hand. "Stop. You don't have to be sorry about this. I know you're doing your job. Since you don't usually let me within a mile of your cases, I figure this is the only way I can help out."

"So, what, you said yes because you think this is the right thing to do?" She put a teasing weight on the last few words, hoping to ease the tension between them. "Is this part of your crusade for truth, justice, and the American way?"

"Something like that, yeah." He didn't elaborate, just held her with his steady, almost-green-eyed gaze. "I didn't realize there'd be so many rules, though."

"We need rules if we're going to survive this." In more ways than one. "From this moment on, we have to assume someone might be watching. We have no idea what sets this killer off, if there really is a killer, but I'm pretty sure any hint we aren't who we say we are will give him cause to go to ground."

"Or to come after us," he muttered. 

"I told you, this is the safest consulting job you'll ever get. Near as we can tell, all the people who died under suspicious circumstances lived in the neighborhood for four months or more."

"I'm not worried about me."

Of course he wasn't. "Maybe you should be. Your newspaper is going to complicate the hell out of my operation, isn't it?"

"Maybe. Probably." He ran a hand over his jaw, which was scrubbed clean and stubble free. Toni curled her fingers into her palm. The car seemed too close all of a sudden, as if there wasn't room for both of them, despite her rules and boundaries. "Speaking of which, I have to take care of something over at Soldier Field after the game this afternoon."

Toni nodded. She'd been working through ways to explain his unpredictable absences for the past forty-eight hours. Her bosses might think the stockbroker story was a great cover for Hobson, but his magic paper was bound to make things difficult. "I'll send you out for groceries."

She slipped her engagement and wedding rings out of her pocket. The wedding ring was the same one she'd worn during her first attempt to catch the Iceman, but the engagement ring was toned down from the rock she'd sported as Mrs. Thurston. The characters they were playing this time had considerably less disposable income, as evidenced by the fact that they were moving into a two-bedroom house. Still, it complemented the wedding band, and they both matched Hobson's. 

He caught her staring at the rings, and the ghost of a grin spread across his face. "You waiting for me to slip them on your finger? Pledge thee my troth?"

"Ha." She shoved them on and opened the car door. "Showtime, Mr. Snow. Get your game face on."

"Yes ma'am." His game face, she thought as they crossed the yard, wasn't much different from his regular face. A slightly dopey grin was probably meant to convey a first-time home owner's pride. He even patted the "Sold" sign as he passed it. 

"Nice touch," she said under her breath. She made a show of taking a key on a fob with the realtor's logo out of her purse and smiling up at him as she slipped it into the deadbolt lock. The oak front door swung open silently, revealing a small foyer that widened into a gorgeous front room, even without any furniture.

Hobson smiled down at her, waggling his eyebrows. "Want me to carry you across the threshold?" 

"You're pushing it, Snow."

"That's Greg to you." He swept her into the house with an expansive gesture instead. "Hardwood floors, big windows, this is pretty sweet." He got down on his hands and knees and tried to look up the chimney. "Can't wait to start a real fire in here some cold night."

"We aren't going to be here that long." The last thing she wanted in her head were visions of spending the fall, then the winter, then the rest of their lives in this house together. They'd be lies, and it would be too easy to believe them. She went to check out the kitchen and the back exit while Hobson loped upstairs.

"Hey, do we both get beds this time? " he called as he came back down and met her at the archway that connected the front room to the kitchen.

"Yeah, about that, Hob—honey," Toni corrected herself as a shadow fell across the room. They'd left the main front door open and a cheerful voice was hulloing through the screen door. "We'll work it out," she tossed over her shoulder, and went to meet the neighbor.

Neighbors, plural. She'd been right about being watched when they pulled up; almost immediately the front porch was occupied by what seemed like a welcoming committee, and they came armed. Long before the moving van arrived there were two casseroles in the refrigerator, a loaf of banana bread on the kitchen counter, and a load of firewood stacked neatly in the bin next to the fireplace. She and Hobson tripped over each other, literally and figuratively, introducing themselves to each new arrival.

A few people stood out, mostly because she'd read their interviews with detectives from the South District. Leo Zalazney, a retired firefighter, lived a few doors down. Bill Warner's backyard adjoined theirs; he introduced himself as a "plumber-slash-actor." Laura and Phillip Walker, the only African American couple she met that day, had four kids under the age of ten. Laura rattled off the kids' names, but Toni registered them as a series of blurs running across the front lawn until she told them it was okay to check out the backyard and its swing set. Mark and Shelby O'Rourke had two younger kids as well. Paige Samuelson sent her two teenagers out to look after the herd and offered to help Toni decide where the furniture should go. 

Toni filed away the details she learned about each neighbor for later. She had a great memory, though she'd need to be careful not to give away the things she already knew about these people in these early meetings. It was odd, having to put on an act in front of a roomful of potential suspects she wouldn't be able to directly interrogate.

Hobson handled the chaos like a champ, and with even more charm than usual. He repeated people's names, shook hands, grinned bashfully at the women, and traded favorite sports teams with the guys as if he'd been born to be a semi-suburbanite.

He actually had, she realized while she watched him take some ribbing from Bill and Mark about being a Cubs fan. "You're south of the Eisenhower now. We'll have to get you some Sox gear to wear. Purely for your own protection, of course," Mark joked. Hobson's answering laugh was rueful and real. It shouldn't surprise her, how good he was at this. He'd grown up in a small town, and the handful of times she'd been in his bar, she'd noticed how he took care of his customers, chatting them up, making them feel at ease. 

"Don't know if I can give up my Cubs hat," he said just as a low rumble outside grew louder and then cut off. "'Scuse me, fellas." He followed Toni out the door, slipping his hand into hers and swinging their arms together while they watched the yellow moving van full of rental furniture pull into their driveway. Just a happy couple ready to move into their happy home. 

She pulled away from Hobson when Winslow pulled up next to the curb in a car emblazoned with a Tech Team logo. He sauntered up to the porch in jeans and the bright green polo shirt that was supposed to be his uniform, chomping a wad of gum that had to be as big as her fist. "Hey there, Mrs. Snow. Ready to set up that home office? Or should I talk to your husband about that?"

"The office is entirely my department," she said, loud enough for anyone listening to hear. "I'll be happy to help you move the equipment inside."

"Whatever you say, ma'am." Winslow gave her a cheeky salute, one she'd figure out a way to make him pay for later, and she followed him across the front yard to the car. 

On their way back into the house, her arms full of boxes that contained surveillance equipment, Toni glanced sideways. Over in the driveway, most of the neighbors, kids and adults, had congregated around the moving van, peering into the back. Had any of the stuff in there actually been hers, she would have shooed them all away, but Nia Snow was not Toni Brigatti. Nia Snow was an open book, her furniture nondescript, her every possession chosen to blend into a neighborhood of retirees, families, and couples who were settling into middle adulthood. Let the neighbors look all they wanted; everything they saw would assure them that Nia and Greg belonged right here.

"Hey, hon, let me get that for you." Hobson jogged over and reached for the boxes. 

Toni twisted away from him and started up the porch steps. "I've got it."

"But you shouldn't have to carry all that." Toni wasn't sure if that was part of Hobson's act, or if it was aimed at Winslow. Granted, Winslow's arms were full too, but Hobson had some throwback ideas about stuff like this that came out at the oddest times. 

"Oh, no, ma'am, I'm sorry." Winslow made a show of setting the computer box down on the porch and holding his arms out for Toni's stack of smaller boxes. "Are you expecting a little bundle of joy? You shouldn't do any heavy lifting in your delicate condition."

Toni wondered if his gum would be cushion enough to save his teeth if she hit him in the jaw. "I am not," she said, nice and clear for the pair of older women—Judy and Fran, she reminded herself, from next door and across the street--who'd taken over the porch swing. 

Hobson took a sideways step away from her, and while the helpful, Greg-ish smile didn't leave his face, his eyes narrowed just a tiny bit. She'd have to work overtime to keep these two apart. Which was nothing new, really. "I'll get the suitcases from the car," he said, and turned on his heel. 

"Let's take this equipment inside," Toni said, cutting off whatever Winslow was about to say next. Nothing good, judging by the gleam in his eye. She made her way through the knots of neighbors in the front room and the dining alcove, then through the kitchen and up the stairs, into the blessed quiet of the smaller bedroom at the front of the house. A double window faced out onto the street, giving her a panoramic view of the avenue. 

"We'll put the desk in front of the window." Toni set her boxes in a corner. "There'll be a daybed against the other wall, and any equipment that doesn't fit on the desk can go in the closet. You can wire it to work that way, right?"

"I'm going to give you the work-from-home setup of any writer's dreams." Winslow's wicked grin was spoiled by the way his left cheek bulged with the wad of gum. "Give the Tech Team an hour and we'll connect you to the world. Good thing your house has this spare bedroom, huh? Never know, there might be a blessed event in your future."

"Shut up and set up my surveillance station," she muttered between her teeth. She didn't have the mental energy to juggle him along with the crowd downstairs. Closing the door and cutting off whatever the hell he was saying about a baby monitor, she started for the master bedroom, but a rush of water from the bathroom stopped her in her tracks. In the simple bathroom, with its black, white, and pale green tiles that looked like they might be original to the house, she found a guy in overalls and a plaid shirt who was neither Greg Snow nor Gary Hobson. He crouched next to the tub, one hand under the running water.

"Hello? It's Bill, right?" Bill Warner, sixty-two, confirmed bachelor, her brain supplied. He'd lived in the neighborhood since the late Sixties. 

"Great water pressure!" He fixed her with a dentally engineered smile that had to be an outcome of the "acting" half of his slashed career. "I always like to check it out for folks. The toilet sounds like it's about due for a new valve, though. Be happy to put that in for you."

"Maybe later," she said, and pointedly waited for him to exit and head down the stairs before she shut that door as well. She went downstairs and started the strangely soothing job of telling the movers where to put each piece of furniture. It was a good hour or so. No one expected her to make small talk, and the movers and neighbors who'd stayed to help with the boxes did what she asked without questioning her decisions. 

Winslow came downstairs at the end of that hour, just as he'd promised. "Looks like you're pretty busy here, ma'am." He grinned, gum-free. Toni was terrified to ask what had happened to it. "I'll come by tomorrow and walk you through how everything works."

"Sounds good." Tomorrow, she hoped, most of the neighbors would be at work. Tomorrow, she could pay him back for all those "ma'am"s and for his crack about her being pregnant. 

Winslow was halfway to the door when Hobson came in with a box labeled "Bathroom." He swerved, almost imperceptibly, and knocked Winslow's shoulder with the corner of the box. "Sorry," he said cheerfully. As Winslow walked out, rubbing his shoulder and casting a dark glare back at Toni, Hobson shifted the box to free up an arm. He sauntered up to Toni and swatted her on the ass. "Where's this one go, babe?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know, the bathroom?" She forced a sweet, teasing smile. 

"That's my wife. Smartest girl in the room." He headed upstairs whistling, leaving her to introduce herself to two more sets of neighbors who'd followed him into the house. Mike Yang and Tim Morgan, who lived next door in what had been the Singers' house, brought wine; Tami and Jason Breckenridge brought a pan of brownies and a pamphlet.

"Build a Better Beverly," Toni read. "Is this a committee?"

"More like a movement," Tami said. Her bottle-red hair bounced in perfect, feathered waves while her husband stood behind her, looking down at his feet to hide his eyeroll. "We want to make sure Beverly stays friendly and fun! We have neighborhood meetings every month to plan activities and litter patrol."

It sounded like pure torture. "Sign me up!" Toni said brightly. 

"We can help bring boxes in," Mike offered. 

"You know, I think most of that is done. Everyone seems to be hanging out in the backyard." Toni ushered them outside, promising to send her husband out to meet them. She excused herself to put their gifts in the kitchen, where she found not Hobson, but Judy Healy, busy unloading a box of dishes into the cabinets. The ones labeled "UTENSILS" and "PANS," which had been packed with items from her own kitchen and the one at McGinty's, already sat flattened under the kitchen table.

"Hi, um--I'm sorry, there've been so many people here," Toni said with a forced laugh.

"Judy, hon. From right across the street." She beamed at Toni while she lined up glasses in the cabinet farthest from the sink. "I thought you'd want everything out of these boxes and in the proper places so you could start cooking right away. I guess you'll have to buy some groceries, too," she added with a pointed look at the refrigerator.

"Thank you?" Toni couldn't help turning it into a question and letting a tiny bit of her irritation slip out. Judy Healy was in her mid-sixties, with steely grey hair and a tall, lithe build. She was too old to be Toni's mother and too young to be her grandmother, and no matter what her age, no matter how kind she thought she was being, she was too nosy to have unsupervised access to Toni's house. 

"I see you have wine." Judy nodded at the gifts in Toni's arms. "Let me guess, that must be Mike and Tim? They do seem to appreciate the finer things." The tiny wrinkle of Judy's nose as she unloaded the last glass wasn't exactly fond affection or even tolerance. She closed the cupboard and dusted her hands against each other. "I brought something, too. I always like to remember big occasions like this in my own family." She took the brownies and wine from Toni and lined them up on the counter with the rest of the food and flowers, then held out a rectangular box, topped with a blue and yellow bow. 

Toni opened the box on the kitchen island, fully aware of Judy's close scrutiny. Inside was a book. A photo album, Toni thought, but the pages were decorated with stickers, paper cutouts, and glue. "Our New Home," Toni read from the lettering on the first page. There was a photo of the outside of the house. The other pages were titled as well, with spaces for photos of the living room, kitchen, back yard, and every other conceivable space. "Even the garage," Toni said when she reached the last page. "This is incredibly thorough."

"Wayne and I have lived in this neighborhood for over forty years. Ever since we were married. And every time a house goes up for sale, I start a new scrapbook for the family." She smiled, eyes crinkling. "Anything you want to know about this block, you come ask me. I'll be happy to help." She put her hands on her hips. "Now, where are you going to put the litter box?"

"Litter box?"

"For that little fellow." 

Toni turned to find Hobson's cat hiding under the kitchen table, atop the boxes Judy had emptied out. Its tail flicked a slow rhythm as it watched them. She bit back what she really wanted to say, that no one had invited the cat and that she'd hoped to avoid it altogether, and instead forced yet another smile for the busybody. If she had to keep this up much longer her face was going to break. "That's actually my husband's department," she said. "I'll go track him down and see what he thinks. About the litter box."

"That's fine, dear. I'll just put the rest of these plates away." She picked up one of the stoneware plates Toni had boxed up from her own condo. "What a colorful pattern! I bet it hides all kinds of dirt."

Toni watched her for a minute as she stacked the plates on the highest shelf in the cupboard over the built-in oven. She thought about pointing out the height difference between her and Judy—she'd need a stepstool just to get a plate for a grilled cheese sandwich—but then decided against it. The first rule of undercover work was, "Blend in," and starting a fight with a well-meaning neighbor before she'd even been in the house a full day wasn't the way to do it. 

"My abuelita gave me those," she said instead. "Guess you could say they're family heirlooms." Leaving Judy looking slightly baffled, probably because she didn't understand a syllable of Spanish, Toni marched off to find Hobson.

* * *

"Haven't been in this house since the remodel." Bill, who had introduced himself as an actor first, plumber on the side, jabbed a thumb at the back door. "You've got good water pressure there, Greg, but like I told your wife, you're going to need a new valve for the toilet. I could do it for you cheap."

"I'll keep that in mind." Gary reattached the last of the legs to the charcoal grill and set it upright. Toni's mention of the house's back porch, which was really just a slab of cement off the kitchen door, had sparked memories of fall evenings in Hickory, his dad cooking burgers and steaks outside while Gary raked the endless leaves. He'd added the grill and the iron table and chairs he used on the tiny rooftop patio at McGinty's to the load of rented furniture in the hopes he'd get more use from them here than he usually did at home.

"I was a finishing carpenter, back in the day," Wayne said. He was the oldest of the group surrounding Gary, though not by a whole lot in Bill's case. "I could help you out with the floors and those built-ins around the fireplace. Looks like they could use some new polish, but I don't think you'll have to sand it down to bare wood."

"Whatever you do, don't paint over the wood. Lose all the character," Mark advised, then made a face at the group of kids playing soccer with the ball that had materialized about the same time as the six-pack the other guys were drinking from. "Drop the cat, Matt!" He and Phil were closer to Gary in age, and from what Gary could tell, they were responsible for at least half of the dozen or so kids who'd taken over the backyard and driveway. 

"Curtis Walker, you get your butt out of there!" Phil stomped off to pull his youngest out of the decorative pond next door.

"We should have put in a hot tub instead," Mike, who lived next door with his partner Tim, said. "That way we could lock the lid."

"You don't want an outdoor hot tub, not around here." Bill gave a mock shiver. "Too easy for the pipes to freeze and burst come January."

Mark popped open a second beer--it was early afternoon, but after seeing the guy's kids in action, Gary figured he'd earned it--and held out the last can, still trapped in its plastic ring, to Gary. "Greg? You sure you don't want one?"

"Nah, thanks." Not that he wasn't tempted. After the tension involved in negotiating the move-in with Toni, there was something relaxing and familiar about hanging out in a backyard under the shade of a pair of tall oaks while kids ran around and guys shot the shit. He supposed he should be questioning them about the killings, but whatever he said would no doubt be the wrong thing, and he didn't want to sabotage Toni's case before she had a chance to get to work. 

He had work of his own to take care of; according to the portable radio Bill had brought with him the Bears' game was headed into the fourth quarter, and Gary needed to get to Soldier Field before it ended. If he didn't, a fight in the parking lot would leave a couple of fans in serious condition. He wasn't sure how he'd get away from the pack until Toni came out onto the tiny back porch and stood surveying the yard, hands on her hips. He took a moment to appreciate the sight. Her jeans and red t-shirt fit her curves perfectly. On the way to the house, in the midst of her list of rules, she'd said she'd always have her gun with her, but if that was true now she must have some kind of magically disappearing holster.

"'Scuse me, fellas. I'm due for a grocery run." He jabbed a thumb toward the porch, and the other men nodded. "Gotta stock up. Where's the best place around here?"

"County Fair over on Western is the closest," Wayne said. "Been part of this neighborhood for longer than Judy and I have lived here."

"Yeah, but if you want anything different, or milk that doesn't cost four bucks a gallon, you're better off driving out to the burbs every once in a while," Phil advised. "Hit the Dominick's in Oak Lawn and you'll more than make up for what you're spending on gas." Wayne and Leo harrumphed at that. "Guys, come on, I've got four kids to feed."

Gary nodded sympathetically, even if the older men didn't seem to relent. "Got it, thanks. You all stay as long as you want." He jogged over to the back door, where Toni was practically vibrating with impatience. "I'm trying to get the lay of the land, figure out who the players are, like you said," he blurted out before she could chastise him. 

"Keep it down, will you?" she whispered, casting a look over her shoulder at the open kitchen window. "If you give us away before we've been here one day—"

"It's fine. Relax."

"It is not fine." She flashed a smile at a trio of boys who ran by waving sticks, but her words were forced out between clenched teeth. "There's a woman in there arranging my kitchen, sticking her nose in my business as if she knows where I want my pans and spatulas." 

"Sounds like she's being nice."

"Nice is different than helpful. Any feeling about those guys?"

"They like cheap beer, which might be useful if you need to get any of them to confess later," he said. "But right now I have to go, uh--" He was interrupted by the screen door swinging open. He and Toni stepped aside to let out a gaggle of women and another flock of kids. "I gotta get those groceries we talked about."

"Groceries," she sighed. "I remember. When will you be back?"

"Give me a couple hours." He didn't relish ducking out on her before they could fully settle in among the neighbors, but everyone he'd met so far seemed more likely to be annoying than murderous, even if Toni's definition of annoying was turning out to be a little different than his. At her exasperated look, he added, "If I don't take care of the story in the paper, there'll be more paperwork for the police." Surely she didn't want that. 

"I get it. Be careful." She stood up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. The contact shouldn't have felt like a tripwire being, well, tripped, inside him, especially when he knew it was just for show. But it did, and it reminded him of what might happen, despite her rules.

"You worry about him getting groceries?" cooed one of the women, who'd wandered over to hand Toni a glass of wine. "How sweet!"

"He's not the world's greatest driver," Toni deadpanned as Gary ducked back into the kitchen for the car keys. 

It took the better part of an hour to get up to Soldier Field and find the right parking lot, where the attendant charged him fifteen dollars to pull the Honda into a space, which seemed particularly ridiculous given how little time it took Gary to avert the fight. Two rows over from his space, he found a pair of guys in Giants jerseys facing down a mob of pissed-off Bears fans. Gary ducked back to the adjoining row and banged on cars with his fist until he set off at least five alarms. That pulled enough of the potential fighters away from the scene to diffuse the tension. The fans exchanged insults but let each other pass.

Relieved, Gary went back to the Honda. He'd just pulled out of the lot, congratulating himself for averting the crisis in plenty of time to get back to the house, when he realized he'd have to go grocery shopping along with everyone else who was headed home from the game. By the time he'd bought a few essentials and made it back to South Hoyne Avenue, it was well into the evening. The yard was empty. He wondered if Toni had scared everyone away, but when he stepped into the kitchen he could hear voices in the front room. He left the grocery bags on the kitchen table.

In the front room, he found Toni and the guys from next door, Mike Yang and Tim Morgan. They reminded Gary of the comedy duos in the old variety shows his parents loved; Mike was tall and lanky, with dark hair and eyes, while Tim was a full head shorter and had a broad, open face under a shock of wheat colored hair. They looking at the photos Rachel had taken at the park, which had been printed and tucked into matching frames. 

"She's my niece," Toni explained as the guys gushed over the picture with Addie swinging between her and Gary. 

"I can see the family resemblance," Mike said. He propped the photo on the mantelpiece with a couple of the others, trying out arrangements. 

"Don't mind him." Tim shot his partner an affectionate smile. "He's a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Arts. Thinks every wall is an exhibit space."

"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right," Mike said. 

"Yeah, that's why you've been working on your bike for two months instead of riding it." Tim shook his head at Gary and Toni. "Guy thinks his vintage ten-speed has to run like new before he'll take a spin in the park."

Mike rearranged the photos and took a step back from the mantel, considering. "What about wedding photos, you got any of those?"

"They're in a box--" Toni started, at the same time Gary said, "My mom has them." 

Toni recovered first. "His mom has them in a box. We didn't want the frames breaking during the move. We'll get them next time she comes to visit. How was the store, honey? You were gone a long time."

He must have exerted more energy than he'd realized stopping the fight and wading through the crowds at the store, because he tottered on the balls of his feet at the easy familiarity she put into that "honey." She'd called him pet names for undercover purposes before, but she must have been working on her acting skills, because this time felt more real than ever. "It was—it was good. Busy. Really busy." Okay, maybe he should have spent more time on his own acting skills before agreeing to this. "I tried to get everything we'll need this week."

"Let me at 'em!" Tim loped into the kitchen and started going through the groceries. "You two must be exhausted. I'll make dinner for all of us."

Gary didn't miss the exasperated look that crossed Toni's face, though she hid it quickly, turning back to the box she'd been unpacking. "You don't have to do that," Gary told Tim. He was capable of making dinner himself, even though he usually didn't need to, since he owned a restaurant. 

"Oh, let him." Mike shot a last, lingering look at the photo of Gary and Toni with Addie before he leaned back against the archway, arms crossed. "He took a cooking class at the community center last year, and now he takes any excuse to show off."

"Can you run over to the house and get those mushrooms we got at the farmer's market?" Tim asked Mike. "Grab the cognac while you're at it." He already had every cabinet opened. "Why are the pans so far away from the stove?"

"Judy," Mike and Toni said at the same time. 

Tim groaned. "Say no more. She tried to tell us where to store our toilet paper when we moved in."

"I forgot to get that," Gary said. 

"Of course you did," Toni said, but waved him off before he could apologize. "Get some next time you're out running errands. I'm sure you'll have plenty of those in the next day or so."

"I'll bring you a spare roll to tide you over." Mike headed out the back door. 

"Did she give you a scrapbook?" Tim asked Toni.

Toni nodded in the direction of the table, where Gary spotted a book labeled "Our New Home."

"Ours had pictures of a dead woman. I mean, she wasn't dead in the pictures, but she'd lived in the house before we moved in and died a few months earlier. Judy thought we'd appreciate knowing the home's history, but I gotta say, that was not what I expected. But then I guess we weren't what she expected, either. You got a spatula?"

"Yeah, but God knows where," Toni muttered.

While Tim cooked, Toni pulled every dish and utensil out of the cabinets, muttering under her breath. Gary took the empty boxes out to the garage, then unloaded the groceries that weren't part of Tim's master plan for dinner into the stainless steel refrigerator. He was a little scared at how normal the routine seemed, as if they really had been doing this for a few years. Of course, he'd done this once before with Marcia, but by the end of that run he'd been walking on eggshells around her. Any semblance of comfort had been mostly for show, even when they were alone. He'd spent more time than he liked to admit trying to fool himself that everything with Marcia was normal.

Maybe it was Mike and Tim's easy interactions, or maybe it really did have something to do with whatever was growing between him and Toni, but here Gary didn't have to think about acting comfortable at all. If they bumped hips when they passed each other or his hand lingered on hers when she handed him a dish for one of the high shelves, it didn't interrupt their routine. It felt like part of it. And maybe Toni Brigatti was a better actress than anyone seemed to think, because she never once shot Gary a loaded look when they made contact. 

If nothing else, they had the next door neighbors fooled. Mike poured the wine they'd brought—a good red, better than most of what Gary stocked at McGinty's—and told jokes while Tim cooked. They traded stories about how they'd met. Gary assumed Mike's and Tim's about running into each other at a fundraiser for the private school where Tim taught art were real, and he let Toni take the lead in telling theirs. 

"So I'm reporting on a serial purse snatcher. Really slow news week," she added with a rueful look that Gary almost bought, "and it turns out this unassuming stock broker who was walking through the park on his lunch break is the one who caught the guy. I thought he was going to be all macho and proud of himself, but it turns out he's—" She looked him over and a smile teased at the corners of her lips. "—not. He said the victim reminded him of his grandmother, and he just wanted to help."

"It was a right time, right place kind of thing," Gary added weakly when the guys looked impressed. It was new to him; she must have worked it out the day before.

Behind Mike's back, Toni rolled her eyes. "That's my Greg," she said. "Hero to little old ladies everywhere."

"I can see why you wanted to investigate him," Tim said with a smirk. "Soup's on."

Back in his twenties, Gary had helped a lot of friends move, and the standard dinner had been pizza, or Chinese takeout if they'd really wanted to splurge. Tim's dinner blew all of that away: beef bourguignon, a spinach salad, and chocolate mousse. By the time they were sipping coffee and licking their spoons clean, Gary could hear his mother's voice in the back of his head encouraging him to start looking for ways to return the favor. Toni practically had to muscle them out the door to keep them from doing the dishes.

"So they're suspects, right?" he asked her as he hunted for containers to store the leftovers. 

"Tim and Mike?" she looked genuinely surprised. "Why, because they're gay?"

"No. You let them stay around so long I figured you were checking them out. Besides, they're so—" He waved a hand, looking for the right word. "It's like they're too good to be true. Almost too nice."

"Nice doesn't equal suspect. Though maybe it should." She handed him a bowl. "The rest of the salad should fit in here. They aren't suspects because they moved into the house next door six months ago." She plunged her hands back into the dishwater and froze, blinking at the darkened window that looked out over the backyard.

"What is it?"

"I need to make a list." She handed him the rag and walked out to the front room, shaking her hands dry. 

Gary finished cleaning up the kitchen and unpacked his suitcase. He hadn't brought a lot; he could always get more clothes when he ran by McGinty's during the day. Still, the bathroom was small and didn't have a lot of counter space. He grabbed a cup from the kitchen to hold his toothbrush and toothpaste and divided the rest of his toiletries between the shallow medicine cabinet and the hanging caddy in the shower. Cat, who'd been wandering the house all day without much comment, perched on the toilet and watched the process. Gary thought about shooing it away, given Toni's continuing objection to cat hair, but he wasn't sure where Cat would go. Much as Cat could annoy him, if there really was a serial killer running around the neighborhood, Gary didn't like the thought of Cat crossing paths with the guy. 

When he came back downstairs, Toni was curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace, papers and files spread around her in a giant fan. He stepped over a box labeled "Financial Paperwork," which had actually held her case files, and sat down in a corner of the sofa. 

"So what do we do now?" After all the people who'd been in and out, the place seemed extra quiet with just the two of them in it. He reached for the remote. At home, he was usually too busy with the bar and the paper to watch anything longer than a weather report.

"Whatever you want." When the television clicked on, though, she reached over her shoulder without looking and knocked the remote out of his hand. "Except that." She turned the TV off. "Let me think. I'm trying to solve this case so we're not stuck here until Thanksgiving." She shuffled through a couple of files, muttering to herself, rearranging the piles in front of her. 

"Anything I can help with?"

"I'll let you know."

He was good at helping her, good at listening while she talked out theories and connections, but he wasn't sure now was the time to point that out. He glanced at the big picture window. He couldn't see anything outside, which meant they were still on display. "Anybody walking by can see us," he muttered.

"Nia's a crime reporter, remember? As long as nobody looks too close, I've got an excuse to have this stuff. We'll get drapes this week. If we're here that long."

Had all that comfort between them earlier been an act? One way to find out. He shifted so he was directly behind her and pulled her back against his legs. She went totally stiff, her head upright on her pencil-straight neck. He went to work massaging her shoulders and neck. "Relax, Brigatti. This is just a concerned husband helping his wife wind down after a stressful day."

"Hobson--" The groan seemed to be half exasperation, half release.

"What's the problem?" He dug harder into her stiff muscles. He didn't understand why she was resisting him. "Anybody sees this, it's what they'll expect, isn't it?"

"It's too close," she said, almost too quiet for him to hear. "Too much like--it's too on the nose." She shrugged her shoulders and scooted out of his reach. "I don't need it."

He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender she couldn't see. "So what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"You could get the coffee maker ready for tomorrow." She didn't even look up from her files. "It has a timer."

"Handy. Sure. I'll make the coffee." He spent another half hour messing around in the kitchen, most of which was spent trying to find a grinder for the whole beans he'd picked up. He found it under the sink. "Judy strikes again," he said while he ground up the beans and set the timer for six-fifteen, hoping it was AM. 

Back in the living room, Toni was still arranging and rearranging her piles. "Sure I can't help you with that?"

"You are a civilian, Hobson." 

Once again he thought about pointing out the number of times he'd helped her go through files and solve cases, but decided she probably wasn't in the mood. Near as he could tell, she wasn't in the mood for much of anything but work. "Okay, well, good-night."

"Night."

He cleared his throat. "Nia?" That at least made her look up. "Shouldn't we kiss good-night or something? I mean, in case anyone's watching."

She looked at the window, then back at him, then stood. She tucked a strand of hair that had come out of her otherwise sleek pony tail back behind her ear, and for a second his legs turned to water. He grabbed her arm to hold himself up while he bent closer and touched his lips to hers.

He'd kissed her before, but this was...weird. Her reaction was tentative at first, just a slight brush of her mouth against his, but then her lips parted, deepening the connection. He wrapped one hand around her neck to pull her even closer, but under his hands her muscles were as stiff as they had been before he'd started the massage. He pulled back. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Her thin brows drew together, and an adorable knot formed right over her nose. There wasn't any Nia in that expression. It was Toni at her most confused, something he hadn't seen very often in the two years he'd known her. "It feels off."

"Yeah." They'd done a lot more than kiss in the past couple months, but after her captain's lecture about keeping things professional, even something as simple as a good-night embrace was probably off limits. Unless, of course, they were being watched. "Feels like your bosses are looking over my shoulder."

"Undercover work is weird at the best of times. We'll figure it out." She gave his chest a pat. 

"Um." As long as they were confessing how uncomfortable they felt, he might as well tackle the elephant in the room. "About the, uh, sleeping arrangements?"

"You take the master tonight. I'll sleep in the second bedroom. The windows have shades, no one will know," she said, misreading his confusion for concern. "We'll trade off, but for tonight I want to see what I can make out in the dark, get a feel for the patterns of who comes and who goes, who's up when. You never know when something like that might be the clue that tips the whole case open."

"Okay." He gave her arm an awkward squeeze. "Good luck."

"Yeah, thanks. You too," she said, and he wasn't sure if the fact she didn't meet his eyes meant she was preoccupied with the case, or embarrassed that they had to talk sleeping arrangements in the first place.

* * *

Toni didn't sleep long. Or well. She worked on a report on the nighttime activities of the residents of Hoyne Avenue, which consisted of exciting stuff like taking out the trash and walking dogs, until she gave in to the exhaustion of it all a little after midnight. But when she plopped down onto the narrow, unmade daybed, her eyes sprung open, and she spent another hour or so rerunning every interaction she'd had with Hobson. She didn't come out all that well in those reruns. It was going to be a long few weeks.

Despite her weariness, she let the scent of coffee lure her out of bed at a ridiculous hour. Outside the open window, a crisp breeze rattled the maple leaves, which were beginning to fade from green into yellow and orange. Toni stood there for a moment, observing, but the only neighbor stirring was Leo Zalazney, who was walking a toy poodle. Not the dog she would have predicted for a retired firefighter, but he was a widower. Maybe it had been his wife's.

"Sun's not even up yet. Why'd you set it so early?" she asked when she stumbled into the kitchen. Hobson poured her a mug of coffee and handed her the cream. Which meant he remembered how she liked her coffee, which shouldn't wake her up as much as it did. But opening her eyes all the way did treat her to the view of Hobson in his boxers and t-shirt, hair rumpled, cheeks stubbly. She silently cursed Banks and Mulcahy all over again for putting this in front of her and decking it out with "hands off" signs, at least if she wanted to keep her career. Maybe this was some kind of test.

"Paper comes at six-thirty," he said. "I gotta be ready." But he didn't move. Just watched her pour a dab of cream into her mug and sip at it.

"What are you staring at?"

"You're beautiful," he blurted out. Dope.

She snorted. "Right." She'd slept in a tank top and pajama pants, and her ponytail was full of bumps and escaped strays. "You're used to waking up to that mangy cat."

"Would you take a damn compliment?"

"Do I have to?" She sipped at her mug, but didn't get the hit of caffeine she needed. "This coffee's a little weak."

"It has to be better than that stuff you drink at the station." He wrinkled not just his nose, but the entire top half of his face. "I don't know how any of your stomachs survive, let alone your taste buds."

"That's what the cream is for."

"I gotta see if the paper's here."

He was gone for a few minutes, longer than she expected. Plenty of time for her to settle down at the table and try to inhale enough caffeine to get her brain moving. When he wandered back in with the paper and cat tucked under his arm, he said, "Um. Any reason there's a bag of lawn fertilizer on the front porch?"

"Just the fertilizer? You didn't smell any gasoline?"

"No, why? You think that was a bomb?"

"Not if there was nothing there but fertilizer. It's probably one of the neighbors dropping a hint about crab grass or something, but I'll check it out," she said. "I don't suppose we could pawn your cat off on one of them."

"I thought you weren't allergic any more."

"It doesn't necessarily mean I like him. Can't he stay at the bar and rack up health code violations?"

"He brings the paper. To the front door stoop, apparently." He let the cat down, but it just stood at his feet, meowing expectantly. "Sorry, buddy, I forgot your food. Cat food, toilet paper, socks." He brushed past Toni, a casual hand on her shoulder to make a path for himself, on his way to the refrigerator. "Don't know if any of these are tuna," he told the cat, which had followed him. "You want some beef burgundy?"

"Bourguignon," Toni corrected. "And it's too good for your cat." As if it understood her, the cat gave an indignant meow. "Did anyone see you out there?"

"Tim was out for a run. We waved." Hobson—she was going to have to start thinking of him as Greg, but there was something completely un-Greglike about receiving a magic newspaper a day early—looked up from his inspection of the fridge's contents. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is we're already playacting the hell out of this thing. You'll have to lie about that paper, too, won't you?" The last bit came out more stridently than she'd meant it to, and he looked over at her, little furrows creasing his forehead.

"Hey, don't worry. I've got this. I'll dress up in my suit, walk to the Metra, and take care of whatever I need to during the day." He pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge. Whole milk, Toni noted with an internal sigh. It wasn't worth another spat, but she was going to have to make him a much more specific list next time she sent him to the store. "Want some cereal?"

"You asking me or the cat?"

"Uh." He glanced from Toni to the cat and back, as if it was a trick question. "Both?"

She sighed. "Why not?"

They ate Raisin Bran in silence, except for the turning pages of Hobson's newspaper and the scratching of Toni's pen. She'd made up a list of neighbors she needed to accidently run into in the next few days, the better to get a sense of who were the most likely suspects. When Hobson set his bowl on the ground for the cat to finish up, she didn't bother to hide her shudder. "Please tell me Marissa's in charge of the kitchen at McGinty's."

"Hey, my restaurant is clean." At her level stare, he ran a hand through his hair. "But yeah, she pretty much takes care of that."

"And everything else, from what I've seen." Toni swirled her spoon through the dregs of her cereal. 

"She's had to, with this thing. Take today. I got a pizza oven at Giorgio's that catches on fire during the lunch rush and burns the place down and a kid who gets lost looking for his missing parakeet. I'll buy the restaurant a working fire extinguisher, stop by the house and tell the mom to close her window so the parakeet doesn't fly away, and run by McGinty's to make sure everything's going smoothly there. Should be back in time to spread that fertilizer before it gets dark."

Pizza ovens and parakeets. Because that was normal. Blended right into Beverly. "I don't need your laundry list." She took her bowl to the sink and rinsed it out. 

The rush of water almost, but not quite, covered up Hobson's muttered, "You cops are all the same, I swear."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He drained the rest of his coffee before he answered. "Crumb always says he doesn't want to know about what I do or how I know to do it. You gonna be that way, too?"

"Crumb knows about the paper." He'd never come right out and said as much to Toni, but surely he'd been around Hobson long enough to put two and two together. "He's too smart not to."

"Marissa says he's in denial." Hobson brought his dishes to the sink; Toni pointedly stepped away to let him rinse them off himself. Didn't want him thinking she was his maid. "So what's on your agenda, Detective?"

She shook her head. "We aren't doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Trading work stories like we're some ordinary married couple. This is an important case, and you're less likely to blow it for me if you don't know every detail."

"You think I'd give it away?" He stepped closer, until his damn wrinkled t-shirt filled her line of vision. "You know, when you say this case is important, it makes it sound like what I do isn't."

Hands on her hips, she glared up at him with all the force she could muster via her inadequately caffeinated brain. "When I say that, it's because if there is a killer, catching him matters, at least as much as your drive-by rescues. There are real people who have real lives like the one we're pretending to lead, and someone may have taken those lives away."

"I help real people, too." Even though he sounded about as petulant as she felt, there was a flicker of hurt in his eyes. "And I don't drive by, not all the time. Sometimes I have to get involved. Like when a detective tells a jewel thief—or a neighborhood full of serial killers—that I'm her husband."

"Damn it, Hobson, this isn't a contest." She didn't know if it was her growl or her glare that backed him up against the island. "I need you to stay focused on this case so I can stop more people from dying for whatever damn reason this guy, whoever he is, has for killing them."

"So we can stop more people from dying," he corrected her. "So why the hell are we fighting?"

"We're not fighting. We're discussing."

"You call this a discussion? Thanks to the windows you left open all night, half the neighborhood can probably hear us."

"In my family this is casual conversation. And the only windows I left open were upstairs." Before he could continue whatever it was they were doing, argument or discussion, she shooed him upstairs. "Get dressed and get out of here before Winslow shows up."

"Again?"

"We're making sure the surveillance equipment works."

"Won't using that stuff blow your cover?" 

"It's meant to look like a home office. I'll go into the Sun-Times or the station a few days a week, but we needed a plausible reason for me to be here during the weekdays and keep an eye on activity around the neighborhood." 

"You couldn't be a dutiful housewife?" He grinned at her, and the tension between them melted, at least for the moment. "Don't bother to answer that. Nobody who knows you for five seconds would think you'd stay put at home to vacuum and garden and whatever the hell else it is people who stay home all day do."

"Take care of the kids," Toni said, thinking of her sister-in-law Luisa, and of Laura and Shelby from down the block.

"Now that is an interesting proposition."

"It really isn't. Get dressed or you'll miss your train."

When he went upstairs, she took the opportunity to remake the coffee, much stronger this time, and to regret what she'd said about his paper. Strange as the whole thing was, he took the responsibility seriously. She also took out her ponytail and finger combed her hair. Beautiful, her ass. 

Hobson came downstairs in a navy suit that was a little loose on him, a cream colored oxford, and a red and navy striped tie. It was her turn to stare. "You said I should dress like a stockbroker," he protested when he caught her looking. 

"You do. Come here." He did, with the goofy expression he got around her sometimes. It faded into disappointment when she readjusted the sloppy knot in his tie then stepped back. "Don't suppose you have a briefcase?"

"Gave that up with the job," he said. "I don't know if this is such a great idea. What am I supposed to do if I have to chase down a purse snatcher in loafers?"

"Get a briefcase today. Expense it to the department. You can carry a track suit in it and change at McDonald's once you get into the city."

"A track suit. At McDonald's," he deadpanned, but there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "You have a very interesting image of what I do all day."

She had images of him, all right, and none of them had anything to do with a track suit. The guy didn't wear suits often, but when he did, he wore them well. And the one time she'd seen him in a tux…

She took another step back and banged her hip against the oven handle. "Look, whatever goes down today, you need to call me if you're not going to be here at dinner time. Maybe the department should spring for a cell phone for you, too."

"Cell phones and me, we don't mix." He flashed a lopsided grin. "You know, you're pretty good at this act. Anybody watching us would think you're worried about me."

"I'm worried about what people will think if you don't keep a stockbroker's schedule. I don't have time to come up with a new excuse every day."

"Huh." He tucked the newspaper into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Tell you one thing I like about this gig. As long as I know you're working a cold case, I don't have to worry about you getting hurt on the job or showing up in the paper."

"You worry about that a lot, Hobson?" 

He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead, as if they were outside where everyone could see, or in front of the curtainless picture window. "I worry about a lot of people. Comes with the job."

"You don't have to do that, you know," she called after him as he headed for the front door.

He stopped. "Do what? Worry about you?"

She wasn't about to admit she liked knowing he thought about her at all during his haphazard, seemingly stuffed-full days. "You don't have to pretend like we're married when no one can see."

The faint grin, or maybe it was a smirk, dropped off his face. "So I can only kiss you when someone else is watching now? I can't show you how I feel unless we're on display?"

"We knew this was going to be the case," she said, trying to hide her own disappointment. "I told you last night—"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it." For a split second she thought he would walk out the door, leaving that hanging between them, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her out to the front stoop. 

"What are you doing?"

He pulled her in close, so close she could feel their coffee-scented breaths mingling on her cheeks. "Saying good-bye to my wife where everyone can see." This kiss wasn't dropped on top of her head. He kissed her like he had the night before, like some kind of damn promise, slow and sweet, drawing her in with a hand behind her head. 

Toni's hand was in his hair, snaking around to the back of his neck, before common sense and a wolf whistle from one of the kids walking to school brought her back to her senses. She stepped back and they blinked at each other. He looked just as confused as she felt. 

"Have a good day, Greg," she said when she could catch her breath. She disguised the push she gave him off the stoop as a pat on the back.

"Yeah," he said with a rueful laugh, and was on his way, joining the morning flow of pedestrians to bus stops and train stations.

Toni made herself smile while she waved at the older couple across the street, Wayne-the-carpenter and Judy-the-organizer. It was only when she was back inside, the door shut firmly behind her, that she let herself wonder just how long she could keep herself steady on this tightrope.

* * *

Gary half walked, half jogged the mile or so from the Metra station to the house. It was only Tuesday, but his fake work schedule was already becoming routine, if a bit exhausting. Back when he'd spent most days at a desk he'd been glad of the mini-workouts he got every morning and evening thanks to public transportation. Now that he was running around all over the city, banging through temporary traffic barriers, chasing runaway pets, and jumping into swimming pools that should have been drained by this time of year, the last thing he needed was another trek through a residential neighborhood, trying to look normal in a disheveled suit and still-damp hair. Kids he'd met Sunday called to him from their front yard football games as he passed. He waved and kept moving; didn't want to have to explain how a stockbroker had ended up smelling like chlorine.

Toni had barely had anything to say to him at all the night before, other than complaining about how he made dinner. The grilled chicken was, "Fine, but it could use more…something. More kick," and while she didn't comment on the steamed broccoli, she hadn't finished it, either. He let it go until she accused him of not rinsing every last bit of soap off the dishes before he handed them to her to dry.

"I'm not here to be your personal chef and bus boy. If you don't like the way I'm doing it, why don't you do it yourself?"

"Because I'm busy trying to solve this case."

He'd wanted to point out, again, that a solution might come sooner if they worked together, but after the way she'd reacted to that idea Sunday night he'd decided it would be better for both of them if he shut up and washed the dishes. But he'd be damned if he was going to let her dictate how he washed them. He kept rinsing them exactly the same way as he asked, "Anything new on that front?"

"Steve Brennan left the fertilizer. He's next door. He and his wife didn't come over yesterday. They seem pretty quiet."

After dinner, Gary had gone over to thank Mr. Brennan, who looked like an older, skinnier version of Gary's dad. He'd realized "pretty quiet" was an understatement. This guy didn't waste a single word. "Told your wife, it's my leftovers. Now's the best time to get it down. Got a spreader?" He'd loaned Gary his, on the condition that Gary wash it thoroughly before returning it. Guy was definitely a grump. Murder suspect? Who knew? Certainly not Gary.

Tonight, since he'd need time to spread the fertilizer before it got dark, he'd brought pizza for dinner. There wasn't a lot to critique when it came to rewarming one of Lou Malnati's pies and slapping slices on plates.

What was bothering him about this whole thing with Toni wasn't really cooking. He'd thought maybe this case would be a chance to get to know her, but she didn't seem inclined to relax, ever, except when she was asleep behind one closed door or another. The only way he knew she was relaxing then was because he could hear her snoring.

"Talk to her about it," Marissa had said at lunch, when she'd dragged a full description of the last few days out of him. "What do you have to lose?"

Gary knew exactly what he had to lose. He'd done this wrong before at least once, and four years later he was still trying to figure out what he could have done differently. Toni was different than Marcia; she was completely unlike any of the women he'd dated in between the two. The rare occasions when she'd let him get close, when she'd let loose with that thousand watt smile or her laugh, just for him, or when she let down her guard and let herself look vulnerable—he'd never felt like that before. He didn't want to put a foot wrong now and risk losing those moments, losing her, for good.

He had everything to lose. But Marissa was right about one thing: nothing else he'd tried seemed to be working. Maybe he should sit Brigatti down and have a heart to heart about what they both wanted out of their relationship. As soon as he took care of the lawn, which he'd need to cut before he spread the fertilizer. He'd already asked Mike from next door if he could borrow their mower.

When he reached the house, though, the lawn was already cut and trimmed neatly around its edges. Gary felt a weird rush of disappointment. He'd been looking forward to doing something that didn't require rushing around trying to save lives or fill drink orders, something outside and physical, something Toni probably wouldn't bother critiquing him for. Instead, she met him on the front porch, where she had her laptop open on the swing next to her. Not even the scent of the pizza and most chaste kiss he could manage took the faint scowl off her face.

"Did you cut the grass?" he blurted out instead of asking her what was wrong. If she wanted him to know, she'd tell him, and if she didn't, he'd just piss her off even more by making her lay it out for him. 

She jabbed a thumb toward the brick Tudor next door. "That was Mike. Said he had to do his anyway so he might as well take care of ours. I tried to pay him, and I think I insulted him. I had to talk him into a glass of ice water. What the hell happened to you?"

"Swimming pool. Guy fell in trying to clean it and got stuck in the drain. I'll figure out some way to pay him back."

"Seems like he should be the one paying you back, if you saved him from drowning."

"I meant Mike."

Toni held open the door for him and followed him to the kitchen, where he put the pizza in the oven, then slipped his loosened tie over his head. "Always hated these things. Even for pretend." Toni watched him, her scowl a little harsher under the bright kitchen lights than it had been on the shaded porch. He could feel Marissa urging him to get on with it already, but he wasn't sure how to start. "Guess I'll go change while that heats up. Unless…"

She traced an invisible pattern on the island with one finger. "Unless what?"

"I just thought maybe you'd want to talk about yesterday morning," he finally managed. "When I left, and we, uh—out on the porch—"

"I'm not sure what there is to talk about. You know what the boundaries are, and why we have to have them."

"I do, but here and now, there's no one watching us."

"Might as well be. I like my job, Hobson, and I want to keep doing it here in Chicago. I can't do that if we get caught--" She circled one hand in the air. "You know. On department time."

He'd thought she liked him, too; he'd thought that was why she wanted to stay in Chicago. "I know all about your boundaries and your job, Brigatti." He put extra weight on her last name, hoping she'd see the distance she was creating between them and the damage it could do. "You know I respect what you do. But I—I respect you, too. As a person. I hope you respect me, too." He could just about imagine Marissa's eyeroll if she could hear him now, and he wouldn't exactly blame her for it. "Respect" wasn't even a tenth of what he felt for the woman in front of him, but he couldn't get the right word out, not when she was spending all their time together setting her damn boundaries.

Her expression softened a tiny bit, then cleared. "Of course I respect you." She straightened up. "Sorry, I'm a little preoccupied by this case. Go change, and we'll have pizza. Maybe we can eat on the back patio?"

"Sounds good," Gary said after a brief hesitation. "Anything about the case you want to talk about?"

"Not yet," she said firmly. "Oh, and there's a block party Saturday evening. Shelby from down the street stopped by to invite us. We're supposed to bring salad or dessert and some drinks. Maybe something to grill. Will you be there?"

"I have no way of knowing that." Gary tried a grin. "I'll put in a request with Cat and let you know what he says."

Toni acknowledged that with a faint "hummpf" and started pulling plates and glasses from the cupboard. Gary went upstairs to change, still wondering why the hell he felt so lonely living with her, when he was closer to her than ever before.

* * *

Toni went for a walk Thursday afternoon. She'd been taking walks and runs around the neighborhood, different routes at different times every day, trying to get a sense of how the neighborhood worked, of who was out and about when, and what they liked to do. It was also a good way to straighten out her head, if not to clear it completely. 

She brought a camera with her, taking snapshots of houses where the odd accidents in the files and Jim Byrne's notes had happened. Once they were developed, she could add them to the rough map she was creating; maybe there was something in the architecture or location that connected the crimes. If they were crimes. 

When Tami Breckenridge, of the "Build a Better Beverly" pamphlets, stopped trimming her rose vines to ask if Toni was photographing the Dewhurst's house for the Sun-Times, Toni waved a hand dismissively. "Photography's just my hobby. I lived in apartments so long, it's amazing to be where there are detached houses and yards. I wanted to capture some of the neighborhood feeling, you know?"

"Hmm." Tami pulled off one of her gloves and rubbed at her nose. "I guess we all have ways to keep busy."

"The people who live here. Don?"

"And Debbie, yeah."

Toni nodded. "They stopped by when we moved in. Their kids are so little. Have they lived here long?"

"About three years. They bought the house right after Leslie Simpson and her kids moved out." Tami ducked her head and lowered her voice as if she were about to reveal a shameful secret. "Her husband died. Mirror fell on him."

Toni tried her best to looked shocked. "How does a mirror kill someone?"

"It was a big mirror," Tami confided. "Fell right on his head."

"What a shame." Toni'd read everything in the coroner's report, which boiled down to "blunt force trauma," and in Jim Byrne's notes, which had consisted of a list of questions: How had the mirror's anchors come loose? Was Jeff Simpson the intended victim? Did the killer know for sure the mirror would kill him? All very good questions, but only worth investigating if it really had been murder. "It must have shook up the neighborhood, someone dying like that."

Tami scratched her wrist. "It was sad, but I have to say, it's been a lot quieter on this block. Not that I wished Jeff any ill, but he had a garage band. They used to practice every Thursday and Friday night. Could barely hear myself think."

Toni nodded as if she sympathized. She did, actually; one of her real neighbors had a fondness for show tunes and open windows, March through November. 

"What's weird is, we bought our house after another guy died young." 

"You're kidding!" This time she didn't have to fake her surprise. None of the five deaths in Mulcahy's folders had happened in the Breckenridge house. 

"There was a bachelor who lived here—I don't remember his name. Judy Healy told me all about it. He was thirty-one, the kind of guy who worked out every day and twice on Sundays, I guess, but he had a stroke walking back from the train stop." She pointed with her clippers. "Keeled over right there in the driveway. Leo called 911, but he died the next day in the hospital. Really sad."

A guy in his thirties having a stroke was sad, sure, but this one didn't smell like murder. "How long ago was this?" 

"About eight years. We moved in right before Thanksgiving in 1992. I tell you what, though, there are some people who definitely missed that guy. Like Paige Samuelson? Judy told me she'd had an affair with him. Ryan found out and was about to walk out and take the kids, but then the guy died. They must have worked it out."

"Wow." Neighborhood gossip was one thing, but this place was turning out to be full of secrets. She still wasn't sure any of them added up to a serial killer. "Guess it's never boring around here, huh? I'd better get going," she added, noting a school bus headed their way. It was later than she'd realized. "It's my night to cook."

"Don't go taking pictures of my house until I get these climbers under control," Tami said with a laugh. 

"Right." 

She continued on, past Mark and Shelby O'Rourke's house with its driveway strewn with tricycles and hula hoops, Leo Zalazney's neatly manicured shrubs, and the Healys' modest ranch. Toni stopped in front of their house to look across the street at hers. Or what was passing for hers for the next little while. Despite being one of the smallest houses on the block, it had undeniable charm. Maybe it was the broad, shaded porch, or the beds of rust and purple mums that bloomed around the foundation, but something about it made it easy for Toni to think of it as home. 

Crossing the street, she started a mental to-do list for the next day. She'd have to go into the city to look up Tami's dead bachelor. Maybe she'd start with the Sun-Times archives and then hit the station. She found it easier to think at her desk in the bullpen than at the house, and much as she hated to admit it, she'd missed having someone to talk through her cases with. With this one in particular, she needed a sounding board, someone to pull her back from the ledge when she started believing an early stroke might be a murder.

There was a flyer for the block party in the mailbox. She stuck it on the refrigerator with the realtor's business card magnet. It was sheer dumb luck that the party was happening while she was undercover, but with a case like this, any kind of luck was welcome, especially when it allowed her to observe interactions among the pool of potential suspects and victims. The key to this case was motive, and motive was in the relationships. Love or money, just like she'd told Hobson and Crumb, and she was pretty sure money didn't have much to do with it; it wasn't as if the schoolteachers, pipefitters, and librarians who'd died had ever had much money to spread around. But it didn't seem likely that all five—now six—of her potential victims had been having affairs, either. 

She put away the camera and sketched out the details Tami had imparted, then washed her face in an attempt to switch mental gears. Sometimes a solution came if she walked away from the work and let her back brain stew on its own. Tonight it was her turn to cook, and she was going to make the most of it. She'd put Hobson in charge of cooking at first in an attempt to make him feel useful, to keep him busy so he wasn't sticking his nose in her case. Things went sideways when he did, and if there was any reason a serial murderer was picking off the residents of Beverly, she trusted Hobson to present himself as a target, however unintentionally. 

She was smashing garlic, letting the aroma clear her head, when the phone rang. It was mounted on the wall next to the back door, but it had a cord that stretched all the way to the front porch. "Hello?"

"Hi, um, Nia. It's…this is…well, it's Marissa?"

"You're not sure who you are?"

"No, it's just, I wasn't sure if I should use my real name."

"It's fine." Toni tucked the handset between her ear and her shoulder and smashed another garlic clove. "Unless I put you on speaker, no one would know, and I'm on my own here anyway."

"Okay, thanks. That's why I'm calling, actually. Ga—Greg? Your husband. Asked me to tell you he's going to be late this evening. One of his appointments had to be rescheduled." Her voice smoothed out at the end of the sentence. Long practice, Toni thought.

"This is why he doesn't want a cell phone, isn't it? So he can leave you to do his dirty work."

"Maybe." Marissa's laugh was as tense as it was rueful. "Probably."

"What's he up to? Anything I should know about?"

Marissa hesitated. Which meant it was definitely something Toni should know about. "He didn't tell me where, or even exactly when."

"Then tell me what."

"He said you don't want to know."

"I don't want to hear about every puppy he pulls out of a storm drain, but if this is something big, something—"

"Dangerous," Marissa filled in, and the rest came out in a rush. "There's a carjacking. A mom with a couple of kids sleeping in the back. Someone pulls a gun on her at a gas station, takes her car, they end up going the wrong way on the expressway and get into an accident. Like I said, he didn't tell me where or when and I'm worried he'll stick himself in front of a gun, or that he won't get there on time and those kids will get hurt."

"Which expressway?"

"He wouldn't even tell me that. He was in a really big hurry. Toni, if there's anything you can do—I know he handles things like this every other day, but it scares me every time, especially when he won't ask for help."

And if he wasn't asking for help because she'd brushed him off the other day, Toni would have to live with anything that happened to him. "Let me try a couple things. I'll get back to you."

"Thank you." If Marissa's sigh was suspiciously quavery, Toni wasn't going to say anything. "I told him he doesn't have to solve everything himself, but he never listens."

"Sounds like Hobson. I'll get back to you." The line clicked dead, and Toni looked down to see she'd smashed the entire head of garlic. The risotto was going to be extra pungent tonight, if she ever got around to making it.

She hung up the phone and tried to think who she could call. There was no point in going out into rush hour traffic looking for Hobson; she didn't even know where in the tangle of neighborhoods and interstates to start a search, and a citywide alert this time of day would get her laughed off the force. How the hell was she supposed to find him, let alone stop him from doing something supremely stupid?

"Reowr." The call came from just outside the back door. Toni looked through the screen and there was Hobson's cat, fixing her with its cold green stare.

"Oh, what?" But she let it in. Hobson had told her to think of Cat as a signal. A signal of what, she had no idea. "How am I supposed to help him? Why the hell am I talking to you?"

She turned on her heel and went upstairs. Among the equipment Winslow had set up there was a portable scanner, programmed to pick up dispatch for Chicago's police and fire departments. She set it up on the kitchen table, hoping she could hear some kind of clue, something to let her know where to send in the cavalry. Working on supper gave her something to do while she tried to sift through the overlapping calls. The cat, for its part, jumped up on the table and curled up next to the radio. For once, she didn't shoo it away.

Two hours, another worried call from Marissa, and a blinding headache from concentrating too hard on the auditory tangle later, Hobson walked through the back door. "Hey, it smells great in here." He dropped his suit coat and newspaper on the table and scratched the cat, which rolled onto its back, purring delightedly. "What's for supper?"

"What—you—God, Hobson, you—" Toni's sputter was interrupted by the squawk of the scanner. She jumped, and the tomato she'd been dicing rolled to the floor just in time for her to smash it underfoot as she marched to the table. "I thought you were—damn it!"

Hobson's brow furrowed as he watched her snap off the scanner, shoo the cat off the table, and pull off her pulp-covered socks. "Were you worried about me? I thought Marissa was going to call you."

"Why the hell do you think I was worried? You could have at least told us where you were. I could have sent someone to help."

"I didn't need help. I mean, there was a bit of a—a scramble." He pulled back the cuff of his left sleeve, revealing a wide scrape across his wrist. "But I held the guy off long enough for the woman to drive away. Gave him some cash and told him to take a cab."

"You told a carjacker to take a cab."

"He might."

"Or he might use that cash to buy drugs, get high, and take someone else's car with someone else's kids in it! Did you at least get his gun?"

"He never pulled it out. Don't worry about it. I checked the paper. Kept checking it all the way home. If the guy does something else, I'll know about it ahead of time. That's how this works."

"That's not how anything should work!" Especially if it meant Hobson was going to stick his face in front of an armed car thief who was already ticked at him in a few hours. Or tomorrow. Or next week. 

"Look, Toni, I didn't have time to do anything but what I did. There were two little kids in trouble. What else do you expect me to do? You want me to not let you know I'll be late next time?"

"Of course not! That isn't the problem." Squeezing her socks in her fist, Toni forced herself to take a deep breath. It wasn't her magic newspaper, she told herself. He knew his job as well as she knew hers. But that didn't mean he always made the best choices. She could list a dozen ways off the top of her head that everything could have gone wrong at that gas station; she'd spent the last two hours doing nothing but making that list. "What I hope you'll do next time, is that you'll figure out a plan—a real plan, a safe plan, one that maybe includes some backup--before you throw yourself in front of someone with a gun."

"But you—your rules—"

"My rules may need some adjustment," she admitted. 

His expression went a little soft and a lot hopeful. "Oh, yeah?"

She threw her socks at his chest, painting a satisfying orange-y blob on his white shirt. "Not those rules, you idiot." She nudged the cat away from the pool of tomato pulp it was lapping up on her way to the stove. "Call Marissa before she shows up on our doorstep."

* * *

Saturday afternoon, the mingled scents of garlic and onion and…was that bacon? met Gary the moment he stepped through the back door, along with Toni's glare. After nearly a week of coming home to varying degrees of that glare, ranging from Monday's Don't Distract Me from My Case version to Thursday's You Scared the Shit Out of Me and Are Therefore Screwed (But Not the Way You Want to Be) iteration, he should have been used to it. But because there were so many variations, he was still learning which was which. He wasn't sure which sin he should brace to apologize for: leaving before she woke up, or taking the car. 

"Where the hell have you been?" It was sin number one, then.

"I was out saving lives, like my note said. Nobody had a gun, I promise." He decided against telling her the lives he'd saved had been a litter of kittens. There had been a kid involved, too. Five-year-old Tasha Freedman would have broken her leg if Gary hadn't intervened in her attempt to rescue the newborn kittens and their mother from a rattletrap shed. 

She looked him up and down, taking in the rip in his jeans and the grime and paint flecks that had gotten everywhere, including his hair. The knot over her nose was a little more pronounced than usual. "Hop in the shower. Don't take too long. I need some help getting this food together. And don't leave your clothes on the bathroom floor this time!" 

That last bit stopped him in his tracks, midway up the stairs. "You want to tell me what you're really pissed about?" He had the thought that maybe she'd been worried about him again, which, he had to admit, was a turn-on. 

He knew better than to admit it to her, though.

"I'm pissed about you treating the floor up there like it's your personal hamper. I'm pissed about having to pick up after you when your clothes smell like cat and mold and mud and God knows what after whatever the hell it is you do all day. I don't want my allergies activated every time I walk into my bathroom."

"I thought Cat didn't bother you any more."

"Just because I stopped being allergic to your furball doesn't mean I like the way it smells. And it certainly didn't eliminate any of my allergies to mold and dust and pollen. If you're going to come home beat up and filthy every single day, the least you could do is clean up after yourself. What do you do, go out and jump in the lake and then roll around in the dirtiest spots you can find just to drive me nuts?"

"You keep saying you don't want to know what I'm doing with the paper." True, she'd said something about redefining rules Thursday night, but at dinner she'd told him she only needed his itinerary if it was something the police could handle better than he could. As far as he could tell, though, that applied to nearly everything he did—or it would, if the police would ever listen to him. Since that wasn't going to happen any time soon, they'd redrawn the line for what he should tell her at Anything That Involved Firearms. That didn't, Gary was pretty sure, include a run-down tool shed. "So I didn't tell you." And speaking of ways they were driving each other nuts…He set his jaw and added, "Just like you won't tell me what's going on with the case, even though I'm supposed to be helping you."

"I'm trying to protect you, you idiot. The less you know, the less you can give away to the real killer, whoever he is. You have the worst excuse for a poker face I've ever seen."

He wasn't aware of coming back down the steps, but somehow he was in the kitchen again, closing the distance between them with every volley. "Yeah, but it didn't help you figure out my secret, did it?"

"Because your secret is something no sane person would ever guess!" She waved the knife she'd been using to cut fruit, and he took a step back, hands up. With a sigh, she looked at the knife, then lowered it. "On a day like today, people might come into the house to, I don't know, check out our bookcases or fix a sink that isn't really leaking. We have to make sure the house looks like we really live in it, and if we really lived together I would never put up with you being such a slob. We have to keep up appearances, Hobson."

He stepped close enough that she had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze. Put on his sternest poker face. "All the nagging you do, it's getting harder to keep up the appearance that I even like you."

He saw her breath catch, but she must have been right about his lack of a poker face. Something she saw gave him away, because the corners of her mouth, wide and full, twitched up. "The hell it is."

She was right, damn her. The woman made him bonkers and he couldn't have stayed away, couldn't have said no to this charade if he'd tried. Case in point: he'd meant to tease her with her own ammunition, and instead he was kissing her, hands on her face, then behind her head, pulling her in close and inhaling the scent of pineapple and watermelon, tasting the sweet stickiness of the fruit on her lips, the warmth of her response tinged with the faint surprise that seemed to be there whenever he tried to show her how he felt.

It was all he could do to remember why he'd kissed her in the first place and pull back. "Sorry. Forgot we can only do that in front of other people." It came out more breathless than he'd intended, and he hid it by heading back to the stairs.

Behind him, Toni muttered something that sounded a lot like, "You little shit," before she said, louder this time, "Hobson. I know you're…" The hesitation in her voice turned him around again. "…frustrated," she finished with a quick glance at his waist. Maybe a little lower. "And I'm sorry about that. But we are going to be on full display today. I need your help to make it work. So go get changed and pick up your clothes—please—and then come help me with this stupid fruit salad so we can go to the party and blend in. Please," she added again.

"I got a couple cases of beer and ten pounds of brats when I ran by McGinty's earlier," he told her. "Between that and whatever it is you're cooking, they're going to love us." 

"It's Arroz con gandules. Rice and pigeon peas. Had to make something Puerto Rican. My taste buds are about to die of sheer boredom, thanks to your cooking."

Gary decided against responding to that; better to let her have the last word. He ran upstairs, showered, and changed into a clean pair of jeans—the last ones he had, and he was going to have to do something about the wear and tear on his suits before Monday. When he came down she handed him a knife and a bag of apples. He tried not to wince at the joy she seemed to take in slicing up an entire bunch of bananas while he cored and diced the apples. When he finished, she tried to pass him a basket of strawberries, but he shook his head.

"I have to duck out for a second and skim Mike and Tim's pond." 

Her jaw worked in a tight, closed-mouth circle before she said, "You what?"

"That little pond they have in the back yard. I noticed on my way out today it needs to be cleaned."

"Why is it your job to do it?"

"They've done so much for us. It's the only way I can think of to pay them back." They might not even notice, but it would make Gary feel better. His parents would never let him hear the end of it if he didn't make the attempt.

"Maybe the best way to do that is to end the cycle. I mean, that guy next door gave us the fertilizer, you thanked him, and that was that."

"Steve Brennan doesn't want to say two words to anyone if he can help it." He waved a hand in the direction of Mike and Tim's house. "These guys are different."

"Oh, no, Hobson, this is on you. If you hadn't brought them that bottle of bourbon Wednesday they wouldn't have felt like they had to trim our hedges for us. But no, the three of you keep escalating your war of niceness."

"The three of us? You're the one who baked them those cinnamon brownie things to go with the bourbon. Those were really good, by they way."

"How do you know what they taste like?"

"Because they invited me in when they caught me sneaking the stuff onto their porch. Those guys don't miss a thing. You sure they aren't suspects?"

"I told you, they haven't lived here long enough to be suspects. How are you going to skim their pond? We don't have a--" She pantomimed sweeping a long pole over the kitchen floor. "—a thingie."

"I'm going to take a tip from them and grab theirs out of their garage. They always leave it open. But I have to do it now, while they're gone." He peeked out the side window. "At least I think they're gone. Car's not there. The point to this is to do it without getting caught. Be stealthy, like they've been." He lowered his voice. "They're like ninjas, Brigatti. Niceness ninjas."

She snorted. "Ninjas or not, they aren't killers. The ones we have to keep an eye on are the older guys. Bill and Leo and Wayne and Steve. And maybe the Walkers and the Samuelsons. They've been here at least ten years."

"Okay, okay." He held up his hands in mock surrender, secretly thrilled she'd let even that tidbit about her case drop. "I'll make sure none of the senior citizens try to take anybody out at the block party. Just let me do this."

She shook her head and dumped the strawberries onto the cutting board. "Go."

The garage next door was indeed unlocked, and Gary managed to skim the pond without getting caught. At least he thought he hadn't been, until Tim came up to him at the block party's grill station and handed him a metal tumbler full of the most perfectly made gin and tonic Gary'd ever had. "Thanks, Greg. We owe you one."

"I think this just about covers it." Gary took another sip as he turned a row of brats. Toni was right; he'd only encouraged the ninjas. But what could it hurt, if they weren't her suspects? "What kind of gin is this, anyway?"

"Plymouth," Tim said. "We got it on our last trip to the British Isles."

"Duty free liquor." Mike came up and put an arm around Tim's shoulders. "Makes a week in Europe truly worth it."

"Oh yeah, I bet it's a big hardship otherwise." Gary was about to ask more about their vacations—including whether they were about to take one soon, so maybe he could take time off the niceness war, as Toni had dubbed it, when Steve Brennan, the guy from next door, joined them at the grill.

"We usually have hamburgers," he said with a frown.

"I think Phil has some going over there." Gary pointed with his spatula. Near the burger grill, Toni stood by a table full of side dishes with Mark and his wife and a couple others he didn't recognize, smiling indulgently when a band of roving kids interrupted whatever conversation they were having. He saluted her with the spatula when he caught her eye, and she waved. Said something to Mark's wife, and the two of them laughed. 

It shouldn't bother him, but it did. Just like Steve bothered him, hanging out and glowering as if there was a wrong way to grill brats. Then again, maybe the fact they were brats and not burgers was what was wrong. The minute Mike started in on a story about another trip he and Tim had taken, this time to Chile, Steve grunted and wandered over to the burger grill.

"How was I supposed to know the guy doesn't like sausage?" he groused.

"Well, he doesn't like us, so…" Tim trailed off, winking at Gary. 

"So? Oh." It took him a moment, but Gary got it.

"It's okay," Mike told him. "A lot of these older folks still have problems with openly gay couples."

"Then there's Bill," Tim said, "who met us with a big hug and an offer to fix all our plumbing problems."

"We ought to be helping him out with his closet," Mike said pointedly.

Gary made a mental note to tell Toni what he'd learned about Bill. The guy seemed to have been in everyone's house at one time or another, and wasn't opportunity one of the key components of a murder? That's what Armstrong had said when he was interrogating him about Scanlon. Then again, Steve's grouchy attitude toward anything he didn't approve of seemed worthy of suspicion, too.

When Tim and Mike walked over to the tables that had been set up for food, holding hands and leaning in close, Wayne came over for a brat. His glower followed the couple, a crappy bookend to Steve's. "Do you know what they brought?" he asked. Gary shook his head. "Some kind of Mediterranean dip. Something with spices and cucumbers." The way he said it, it might as well have been toxic.

"That a problem?"

"My wife can't eat cucumbers. Give her gas." 

Gary followed Wayne's gaze to the group of older women who sat at the biggest table, kind of a place of honor from what he'd been able to tell. If he was remembering which one was Wayne's wife correctly, her plate was plenty full with other things, including one of Gary's brats. Gary thought about urging him to try the Puerto Rican rice, just to get a rise out of the guy, but Toni would probably kill him if he antagonized a possible suspect. "Sorry to hear that."

He was spared more discussion of the neighborhood's digestive issues, for relative definitions of spared, by a trio of women who came up to his grill, giggling and holding plastic wine glasses. He recognized two of them from his daily walks to the Metra station: short-haired Debbie waited with her daughter for the school bus, and the one with the ponytail usually passed him on her morning run. "Heidi, right?" he asked, and she nodded. 

Wayne grunted and wandered off, probably to find someone else who'd listen to his complaints.

"Mmm, those smell amazing. I love a good brat, don't you?" Heidi leaned over him to sniff at the grill, letting her breasts brush his arm. 

"Careful, that's hot." He tried to step away from her, but another one, a redhead, was in his way. He didn't know her name, but she fluttered long, pale lashes at him.

"Uh," he offered.

"Tami," she said sweetly. 

"Can I help you ladies?"

"We came to help you," Debbie said.

"With your sausages," Heidi added.

"I'll take care of his sausage," said a much less sweet voice. The circle parted to let Toni in, though the look Heidi gave her could have melted the ice cream bars at the far end of the dessert table, despite the dry ice surrounding them. Toni held out a platter. "Think they're ready?"

"Oh, yeah." Now why was she glaring at him? He hadn't invited Heidi and company, who'd probably polished off several bottles of wine among them already. And it wasn't like he couldn't handle himself. He was the target of flirting every Saturday night at McGinty's. 

But maybe this was part of the act. Of their act. If that's what she wanted, he could give it to her. "Nia takes great care of my sausage," he said, making his voice throaty. He caught her elbow with his free hand and pulled her in close, planting an open-mouthed kiss on her that was entirely inappropriate. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, enjoying the way her almost inaudible moan wrapped around it, until her foot slid onto his and pushed down, crushing his toes.

He tried to turn his whimper of pain into a satisfied noise as he pulled away. It was only fair; if she had to pretend she expected to be kissed like that he supposed he had to pretend he hadn't felt the retaliation. Still, he wrapped an arm around her and laughed, as if they engaged in PDAs every day. As if they were married.

The other women backed off, if not entirely away, looking disappointed. He grinned at Toni and took the plate, lifting brat after brat onto it. "Just be sure you keep that sausage in a safe place," she said teasingly, and plenty loud enough for not only the three women but the entire crowd at the food table to hear. She patted his butt, her hand lingering as she drew it down his thigh. He fought to keep his reaction under control. 

It was all for show. It was Nia, not Toni, being playful.

"Mama!" A little voice piped up. Gary recognized Debbie's youngest, who waited with his mom and big sister every morning at the bus stop. He'd told Gary solemnly that he was too young to go to school yet, but next year he would have a Buzz Lightyear backpack. "Mama, we want to play baseball but the big kids won't let us." 

"Tell them I said it was okay," Debbie said with a dismissive wave. 

"I tried that. They won't listen."

"Then ask your father."

"I got this." Gary saw his opening and took it, handing the tongs and the plate full of brats off to Toni. "You're Drew, right?" 

The little boy nodded.

"Let's go get 'em." 

"Greg?" Toni stood with the tongs and the plate, her face a mask of baffled exasperation.

"I'm going to help the kid play baseball. That okay with you?" Surely this didn't break any rules.

She shrugged. "Fine. Have fun."

Gary took Drew's hand and they walked down to the far end of the block, where cars had been cleared off the street and a wiffle ball game had spread across the width of the avenue and onto a yard and the driveway across from it. An army of tiny people fell into step behind him, boys and girls, none of them looking old enough to be out of kindergarten. The kids playing ball were older—or at least taller—but they backed down when Gary offered to coach both teams in exchange for integrating the younger kids into the game. He was pretty sure none of these kids were on Toni's super-secret list of suspects, and it was a hell of a lot more fun than walking the tightrope he'd been teetering on among the adults. 

Among Toni and the adults, he thought when he looked up from helping Caleb widen his stance. A lot of them had migrated down the block to watch the game that had swollen to include all the kids at the party. Toni stood out among them, even though she was shorter than most. Maybe it was the emerald t-shirt, or her dark ponytail, or the fact that she was one of the few non-white people in the group. More likely it was that even when she was supposed to be relaxing with a wine glass in her hand she stood like a cop, legs slightly apart, shoulders tense. Ready to pounce at his first misstep. He hoped nobody else was watching her, noticing her like he was, because to him she seemed like a center of gravity, pulling him in and distracting him so badly he never saw it coming when Caleb swung the bat right into his gut.

* * *

Toni pulled a lot of information from her conversations at the party, including the story of a guy Bill knew who'd died in a fire caused by a faulty space heater while working in his garage. "Ted had this fleet of cars, kept some of them on blocks in his yard," Bill said. "He worked on them all the time, and he always kept that garage door open to air it out. The one time he didn't—" He shook his head. "Didn't even make it out from under his GTO."

Eventually, though, people started looking at her sideways for asking so many questions, even when she reminded them that as a reporter she was naturally nosy. When Hobson, the coward, ran off to play with the kids—which was hardly grateful, after she'd saved him from the attentions of what looked like Gaston's harem from Beauty and the Beast--she became the target of questions instead. The women who'd been flirting with her husband followed her to a serving table, where she set down the brats next to a pile of "Build a Better Beverly" pamphlets and took the wine glass back from Tim.

"Nice work," he said in an undertone. 

"I guess you must not be planning on kids anytime soon with that little place," Tami said while she poured Toni's third glass of wine. Or was it her fourth? She'd lost track. Which meant she shouldn't have more, but screw it. She'd been on duty twenty-four seven for most of the past week. "I mean, Tim and Mike have, what is it guys? Three bedrooms and two baths?"

"Four and two and a half," Tim said. He gave Toni's elbow a discreet nudge, as if to say they both knew what Tami was up to. It was refreshing to have someone backing her up. Should have been Hobson's job, but he was too busy starting trouble with her and running away when she rose to the challenge. "We've applied for overseas adoption. Hoping for one of each."

"We really lucked out on the house," Mike put in. "I mean, you know what real estate around here costs, and last spring that one showed up on the market for a steal."

"That's because Jess died and Aaron was looking to get out," Heidi said. "Too many bad memories, I guess."

Toni made her eyes round. "I heard that story. He must have been heartbroken."

"Such a sad story," Mike said. "I guess she was really allergic to bees and got stung."

"I thought it was hornets," Shelby said.

Toni was too busy gauging the reactions of the rest of the group to register that Tami was talking to her, trying to get back to her favorite topic, until she nudged Toni with her elbow. "What about you, Nia?" she pressed. "Plans for a family?"

"We already are a family," Toni snapped, but forced herself back into the smile she'd adopted as Nia's. "But no plans for kids, at least not anytime soon. Our careers keep us pretty busy." Mike raised an eyebrow; like anybody who knew her, he'd figured out her tone meant she was about to end the conversation in a way that wouldn't have worked out for anyone, if one of the harem hadn't intervened.

"Oh, I know, we all think our careers are so important." Debbie had introduced herself as a cosmetic specialist; according to Jim Byrne's notes, she sold makeup at Marshall Fields. "You might not be ready to be a mom, but Greg is so great with kids. Look at him!"

"Let's," Toni said before she could say something she'd really regret, and hustled down the street to watch the game in which Hobson had inserted himself. The rest of them followed, joining the knot of parents who were standing around watching, but not participating. Instead, they were drinking more alcohol than Hobson probably sold at his bar on a Saturday night and letting him do all the coaching and umpiring. 

She told herself not to get involved. He seemed to be having a great time, even when he got whapped in the stomach by an overenthusiastic batter. Instead of the bewildered, on-edge mess this assignment had turned him into, he was laughing with the kids, calling them out on their bad form and pointing the little ones in the right direction when they tried to run the bases. Apparently the strain of pretending had been getting to him as much as it had to her. It would explain the weirdness of both kisses he'd initiated that day, private and public, and her own inability to refrain from provoking him at the grill station. 

The thing was, he wasn't the only one who needed to vent a little frustration, and he certainly wasn't the only one who knew baseball. When a whiffle ball landed at Toni's feet and the girl who came to scoop it up heaved it back toward the field of play with all the grace and strength of a broken-legged flamingo, placing the ball less than two yards away, she couldn't help herself. 

"Here, hon." Toni handed the plastic wine glass to Heidi, picked up the ball, and curled the girl's hand around it. "You want to shift your weight to your front foot, follow through with your arm." 

"Like this?" The girl tried again. The ball made it a couple feet further.

"Better, yeah, but next time put some oomph into it. You got a brother?"

The girl nodded the long-suffering nod of a younger sister. Toni knew it well. "Matthew." 

"So imagine Matthew's standing where you want the ball to go, doing the one thing that makes you maddest."

"Going to the bathroom while I'm brushing my teeth," she said, and wrinkled her freckled nose. 

"Yuck." Toni pointed toward the pitcher's mound, a wooden box in the middle of the yard. "See him there? Get him. Hurl that ball and smack him right in the face."

Her throw didn't quite make the mound, but it got as far as third base. Before she even had time to think about it, Toni was coaching the entire outfield on good throwing technique. When the inning ended and the teams switched sides, she took her kids through the at bats while Hobson gave the other team fielding tips. 

They didn't say more than two words to each other at first—managing half a dozen kids each didn't leave time for conversation—but as the kids caught the rhythm of the game and picked up on their hints, Toni's competitive side took over. Her coaching shifted from the tips she remembered from her own days in junior high and high school to the chatter her brothers had taught her along with batting stance. She was careful not to direct it at any individual kid; the insults went to Hobson. By the time they hit the seventh inning, her pitcher, a tiny but fierce little girl named Mia, was shouting, "G-U-G-L-Y, Greg ain't got no alibi!" She turned to Toni and whispered, "What's an alibi?"

"Don't listen to Nia!" Hobson shouted from behind the plate. "She's a Phillies fan!" A chorus of boos erupted from the batters lined up for their turn.

"Yeah, well, Greg likes the Cubs," Toni told the kids who were scattered haphazardly around the bases and the yard. "What do we say to that?"

The chant was instantaneous. "Cubs suck! Cubs suck!"

"Hey, no fair!" Too late, Toni saw that one of the boys in the batters' line was wearing a Cubs hat. He stepped out of line, hands clenched in fists. "Don't listen to them! Their coach is a girl!"

"Time!" Hobson waved his arms. "Time out! Everybody huddle up!" He pointed at Toni's team. "Everybody!" 

The kids gathered around the batter's box. Toni stood on the outside of the circle, wondering what exactly he thought he was doing. "I know you all are getting into the game, and that's great. But 'girl' is not an insult, you hear me?" He waited for a dozen heads to bob. "We don't say stuff like that, Curtis. Especially to her." He flashed a grin at Toni over Caleb Walker's head. "She's got a gu—"

"Greg!"

"—great understanding of the game," he finished weakly, then clapped his hands. "Okay, the score's tied. Who's up next?"

But at that point, Laura and Shelby called their kids to eat.

"Aw, come on!" the shouts came from Hobson as well as from the kids. 

"Okay, one more at bat," Laura allowed. "You all need to eat before the food gets cold."

"Nia and Greg should do it!" Mia declared, and after a swirl of activity that she would have sworn the kids had planned, though she couldn't imagine how or when, Toni found herself in the batter's box, facing Hobson.

"No lollipops, Greg!" one of the dads called.

"He knows better than that," Toni shot back, and stared Hobson down until he gave a little shrug and nodded. She ground her heel in the concrete, just like her oldest brother Carlo had taught her, and raised an eyebrow when Hobson drew back, showing a meaner form than anything he'd taught the kids. Both teams stood in the outfield—the O'Rourkes' yard—waiting. 

"Everybody in," Hobson shouted, with a shit-eating grin just for her. He let the ball fly, a mean curve that came right at her, but she sensed rather than saw its sudden drop right in front of the plate. She stretched the bat for it and made contact, putting her whole body into the swing. The ball sailed straight toward Hobson, then lifted and soared over his head, over the heads of the twenty or so outfielders, and into the O'Rourkes' backyard. 

Toni rounded the bases, so intent on touching the tree, the front steps, the fire hydrant, that she didn't see Hobson standing behind the Frisbee they'd been using for home plate until her foot landed on it and it went skidding out from under her. Hobson caught her around the waist and swung her in an arc as though she was one of the kids. He set her on her feet and then, his arm still holding her tight against him, he leaned down and kissed her.

She'd run the bases. He'd spun her around. That's why she couldn't breathe or find her footing. That's why his lips pressed against hers, vibrating with his deep chuckle, made her forget who she was, Toni or Nia, cop or wife, until the wolf whistles and cheers crashed over them. She pulled back enough to see the crinkles around Hobson's eyes in the fading light. 

"Good hit," he said. 

"Yeah," she breathed. It was all she could think of to say. Because she was an idiot. Because she'd kissed Hobson, not Greg, but Hobson, in front of a neighborhood full of potential suspects and victims. Because the only thing holding her steady, the only thing keeping her from falling right the hell off the tightrope she was supposed to be walking, was Hobson's arm around her waist.

"Newlyweds," someone chortled behind her, and the game dissolved as everyone headed for the food tables.

"You okay?" Hobson asked.

"Of course." She pushed back against his hold, and he let her go. "You know, for someone with—" Appalled at her sudden lapse, she broke off. 

His brow creased. "What?"

She'd been about to say that for someone with a propensity toward deception, he was awfully damn convincing when he wanted to be. But she couldn't say that here, now, in this fishbowl that had suddenly become her life. She forced a light smile. Nia's smile. "For someone who thinks he has a wicked sinker, you are surprisingly easy to hit out of the park." She took his hand, like the newlywed she was supposed to be, and tried to ignore the warmth that spread up her arm. "Let's go eat."

* * *

Buoyed by excitement from the game and his success at blending in with the neighbors, Gary had more to drink than he'd planned with dinner. And after it. Despite sleeping in the bigger, softer bed, he woke up groggy, not sure if he needed coffee or a shower more. If he'd been a more responsible recipient of the paper, he'd have gone to get that first, but he figured if there was something there he needed to see before he was coherent, Cat would alert him.

Since Toni tended to take long showers that used up the hot water—she claimed they helped her think through the case—he decided he'd better hop in while he could. Just as he stepped into the hallway, the door to the spare room opened and she stumbled out, headed straight for the stairs. She must have chosen coffee first. He wanted to ask if she felt a little hungover too, but she recoiled with a grunt when their shoulders brushed as he crossed the narrow landing. He let it go.

He spent his shower trying to figure out what the day before had meant. Okay, not the whole day. Just the kiss at the end of the game. It had felt real enough, but the intense, questioning stare Toni had given him for half a second afterward had shifted into Nia's false fondness in the time it had taken his heart to restart. He'd had no idea whose hand he was holding when they'd walked over to the picnic area. But then again, maybe it was all his fault. He was the one who'd initiated the kiss, no matter how sure he'd been in the moment that she felt the same way. One thing he was sure of: the mixed messages they were sending and receiving were going to kill any hope they had of making their relationship work.

When he went downstairs the coffee was made, thick and dark and almost undrinkable. Toni and Crumb had more in common than either one of them would probably care to admit. He splashed some cream into the black hole in his mug and went out to get the paper. It sat neatly on the porch railing, Cat standing guard. Gary crossed the porch to pick it up, but when he glanced out at the yard he saw Toni on her hands and knees by the flower bed that lined the driveway. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved plaid shirt, the same kind of print she usually gave him shit for wearing. After taking a minute to watch her, admiring the curve of her back, Gary checked the metro section. He found a couple things he needed to take care of, but not until the afternoon, so he left the paper and his rapidly cooling coffee on the porch and went to join Toni. 

"Weeding on a Sunday morning? Pretty industrious."

Sitting back on her heels, she scowled up at him. Her hands, which rested on her knees, were covered in plastic wrap. Forget scoring that full-watt, brilliant smile of hers; he would have settled for a tiny upward curl at the corners of her mouth. "I'm working my case, Hob—honey," she corrected herself, and surreptitiously slipped one hand free of the plastic wrap before waving across the street to Judy Healy, who had come out in a bathrobe and headscarf to get their own paper. She you-hooed at them the same way Mrs. Campbell, his next-door neighbor in Hickory, had called out to Gary every morning when he was on his way to school. 

"Now I have to do this all over again," Toni muttered, struggling with the wrap. 

"Why'd you take it off?" Gary crouched down to help, trying to hide the grin that kept threatening to bust out of him. If he let it go, she'd want to know what he was smiling about, and he knew better than to tell her that the buzzing frustration she radiated appealed to him. 

"Because it looks ridiculous, and I didn't want to explain it to Judy."

"I didn't realize you cared so much about your manicure. What are you doing, looking for a body in our flower bed?"

She whapped him with her newly wrapped hand. To anyone else, it might have looked playful, but Gary struggled not to fall back on his butt. "I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about…the case." Her slight pause might have been his imagination, but the way she ducked her head to avoid his gaze was not. "I think better with my hands busy." She picked up a trowel and started digging at the stray dandelions surrounding the big, bushy plants. 

"Is the plastic wrap to help you think, too, or are you afraid someone's poisoned our mums?"

She tossed a dandelion with a root the size of a carrot onto the small pile she'd already dug free. "I get a rash if I touch the wrong plants. Part of being allergic to all kinds of random things. Like cats."

"But you're not allergic to Cat," he pointed out. The furball in question strolled past them, tail alert as it pushed its nose deep into the mums. "Not anymore."

She shrugged. "I guess. I still get hives from nearly every other source of pollen and dander. But no, I'm not wearing this stuff because I'm afraid someone's out to get us. We're too new, plus we've got your paper to warn us, don't we? I think we're safe."

Safe. Cast in the early morning light dappled by the leaves drifting down from the maple tree, she was anything but safe. And he didn't really want to be safe. He wanted to pick up where they had left off before she'd recruited him for this assignment. Or her boss had.

"Do you need to go into the city today?" Toni went on, oblivious to the direction his thoughts had taken. "I want to check on some files I asked Paul to pull for me. We can act like we're going to church if anyone gets nosy."

"If?" Gary snorted. 

She tilted her head and rolled her eyes in a silent touché. "Shelby invited us to Mass at St. Barnabus, but I told her we're still going to St. Joseph's until we say good-bye and get more settled here. That's just down the street from the station, so it shouldn't be too suspicious if I head that way."

"I thought this was South District's case."

"The ME files all come from the same place." She reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, but it stuck to the plastic and flopped back down in her face as soon as she moved her hand. "So if you have your shtick to do, we can leave together, which would look more natural. I can drop you off wherever you have to go, and take the car to the station. This afternoon I'll either pick you up or you can take a bus or something and say I got called into work."

He couldn't take it any more. His knees were about to give out, so he grabbed her elbow and pulled up her along with him. 

"What the hell are you doing?"

He shouldn't have found her indignant yelp so adorable. After all, she could just as easily have clocked him one for hauling her up without a warning, cover or no cover. "I don't think a good Catholic girl like Nia cusses on a Sunday." He ran his thumb over the smudge on her cheek. "You've got a little dirt there." 

Her lips parted, probably to chew him out. He leaned down and kissed her, just like he'd been thinking about doing again for the past twelve hours or so.

He hadn't imagined it yesterday, because she went through the same progression now: a willing, equally hungry response, a slow close of her eyes, her hands coming up to grasp his shoulders; then a sudden stiffening, followed by a sweet, quick finish to the kiss and a half-step back, flashing a smile that wasn't Toni's up at him. The smile was for Greg; the annoyance in her eyes was all for him.

"Again, I have to ask, what the hell are you doing?"

"Half the neighbors are probably watching us with their morning coffee," he said, keeping his own smile equally firm, equally fake, because he didn't know how to read her at all. He lowered his voice below hers, making it a competition. "And since the only time it seems to be okay to get close to you anymore is when someone else is watching, I thought I'd better take the chance now."

"That wasn't for show, any more than yesterday was." He almost couldn't hear her over the rattle of leaves in the breeze, though that fake smile stayed fixed on her face.

"What's wrong with making it look real?"

"Because when it feels real, its--I don't know—" She shook her head, then her hands, trying to dislodge the plastic wrap. "I don't know what—I've got it," she snapped when he tried to help her, and stepped back out of his reach. "I don't know whether people will realize that it—the kissing--is real while everything else we do isn't. I don't want to blow our cover." She snapped out the phrases like a hip-hop artist, violently tugging off the plastic as she did so. 

Gary ran a hand through his hair. "This is ridiculous. You realize that, right? We're fighting about how to pretend to look like we care about each other without looking like we care about each other too much when we both seem kind of afraid that we do care too much. I for one am totally confused right now."

"You're confused?" She thrust her hands down. The shreds of plastic wrap sticking out from her fist snapped like a whip. "Why do you keep kissing me like that?"

"Because you're my wife!"

"I'm pretending to be to be your wife. And if the pretense is going to work, we have to be consistent."

"The only thing I know consistently is that I do care about you, T—" He stopped when she hissed out air through her teeth and looked around, reminding him that someone might be watching, that the outer layer of this was pretense. He wasn't the best with words, never had been. He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer, and she let him. Was that because she wanted to be close, or because it would look like they were making up to anyone who might see? "I care about you, Toni," he whispered, ducking his head down and aiming the words at her exposed ear. "Not Nia. You. And I damn well want to show you how much the only way you'll let me."

She shut her eyes, against the sun topping the houses or something in his face she didn't want to see, he couldn't be sure. Her hand came up to rest on his arm. "I'm confused, too. You don't help much with that when you just grab me and kiss me out of the blue."

"What do you want, a warning bell?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "More like a siren."

In that moment, Gary wanted a lot of things, but above all, he wanted Toni to trust him. He blew out a breath, nodded. "I'm sorry. I really am. I know I keep starting stuff, and I shouldn't, but I keep forgetting, because you're so—" So many words could have ended that sentence. So compelling. So smart. So beautiful. So damned frustrating. So everything he hadn't realized he wanted until she'd marched into his life two years ago, demanding to know who needed babysitting. But he didn't say any of that, because the beginning of the sentence was all wrong. He knew it as soon as the words slipped out and her chin jutted forward. "No, that's not what I mean. It isn't your fault. I shouldn't have said that. I promise I won't try to kiss you again, not unless you want it, okay? It's just--I'm lost. I feel like we're lost in all this." 

Her expression softened; her chin pulled back. "I know what you mean. It's not like I don't want—but we can't, not here." It was almost a whisper. She walked over to the house and sat down on the porch steps. After a baffled moment, in which Gary noticed Cat had stopped patrolling the flower bushes to watch them, he followed. 

Toni twisted the plastic wrap around her hands, her wrists, and back off. She didn't look up at him, but she scooted over. He sat down, leaving a couple inches between their legs. He wasn't sure he'd be able to keep the promise he'd just made if they touched.

After a minute or two of silence, the Walkers' minivan passed the house. Phil waved from the open driver's side window, and Gary waved back. Toni's head turned to watch the van down to the corner, where it turned, and she sighed. "I talked to Aaron Singer Friday morning. It's been a year and the guy hasn't let go. He's sure someone planted the nest of yellowjackets right over there." She pointed at Tim and Mike's house, which had a porch just like theirs, though the house was twice as big. "He worked so hard to protect her. He'd been fastidious about the yard. They were planning to fill up that house with kids. Nothing he did saved her."

Gary leaned forward, forearms on his knees. "I can't imagine how much that guy is hurting." Truth be told, he could, at least partly. He'd almost lost people he cared about, people he loved, more than once in the past few years. If anything had happened to one of them, he'd never stop reaching for reasons. He'd never stop trying to make it right. "Were you looking for yellowjacket nests in the flower beds?"

She shook her head. "I have that list of deaths from Mulcahy, the ones he told you about at the briefing. All those happened in the nineties. But I've been looking for records of other deaths, trying to find patterns. Even took a page from your newspaper and searched through records at the Sun-Times. It's needle in a haystack stuff, but I might have found a few things."

"What did you—wait a minute. You went to the Sun-Times archives? The ones in the basement?"

"You know of any other Sun-Times archives? Yeah, of course. Normally it'd be like looking for a needle in the haystack, but there's a guy down there who seems to remember everything."

"Morris," Gary said.

"Yeah, that's his name. You know the guy?"

"Better than he wants me to." Gary waved off Toni's puzzled look. "He's a friend. Helped me figure out some things about the paper back at the beginning. Tell him I said hi next time you're down there."

She let out a little groan and rubbed at her temple. "He helped me pull up microfilm copies of the paper from the eighties. We both got headaches scrolling through them, but there are a couple deaths that might fit our pattern. One guy, Hugh Stamos, lived with his family in that bungalow." She pointed at the Samuelsons' house down the street. "The photos of the house at that time show a big garden in the front yard. Stamos was a back-to-the-land kind of guy, a hippie long after the rest of them turned into yuppies. His obit talked about him growing almost all his own food, right here in the city. He died because he ate nightshade berries, something his wife swore he never would have planted on purpose, not with three kids around. At the time, she thought he mistook them for a less deadly variety. Tragic, but not murder. But given some of the other things that have happened around here…" She trailed off.

"Anything is possible," Gary filled in. It was more than she'd told him about the case in an entire week, but he didn't want to point that out for fear she'd realize what she'd done and clam up again. "You think someone put them there deliberately? That's kind of risky, isn't it? I mean, not just getting caught doing it, but hoping the victim won't notice. Or that the kids wouldn't eat it."

"Unless the killer was hoping they would." Toni shuddered. "As long as you don't care exactly who dies, or when, if you're patient and lucky, you can slip the murder weapon into someone's yard in plain sight. Stamos clearly died from poisoning, but since the berries came from his own garden it got written up as a mistake, rather than a murder."

"A mistake that'll haunt his family forever." 

She half-turned to him, eyes wide and startled. "Yeah, that too."

Murder or not, the poisoning down the street was the kind of thing the paper should have warned him about. Or, in the case of Hugh Stamos, it should have warned Lucius Snow. "So you were digging through our mum bed because you think someone's slipped deadly berries in there?"

"Not really. Like I said, I was trying to think, before you—" She looked at him again, and this time he got the slight curling of her lips that he'd been hoping for. Leaning into the space he'd put between them, she knocked her shoulder against his. "We'll get through this, Hobson. I'll solve the case and we can go back to—to where we were. To normal."

"What the hell does normal mean for us?"

"That's a very good question." She sighed and stood, tucking the plastic wrap into the back pocket of her jeans and offering her hand to pull him up. Unlike the hand-holding she'd initiated yesterday, though, this didn't seem to be for show. The little squeeze felt genuine. "Come on, Mr. Snow. Let's get ready for church."

* * *

Toni met Paul in a diner in the South Loop. On the off chance someone from the neighborhood or the South District might see them, she dressed more impractically than she did as a cop, in a shirt with three-quarter length sleeves and slacks with flared legs. She walked into the diner clutching an oversized bag, notebook and pen already out. Paul was waiting for her at the hostess stand. He, too, had dressed down; she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him in a shirt without a collar, let alone in a Henley and windbreaker. Only the barest twitch of his jaw betrayed his amusement, or whatever the hell it was he was thinking when he saw her.

"Detective Armstrong," she said when they shook hands.

"Mrs. Snow."

"Ms."

"Sorry." His jaw twitched again, and for some weird reason Toni was reminded of Hobson's cat. Maybe because she suspected Paul of playing with her, just a bit. "I thought you were married."

"I am. Happily," she deadpanned, fighting to keep any trace of what Hobson had called confusion from showing. "But I go by Ms. professionally." A waitress came to lead them to their table, and Toni shot Paul the same cheerful, I'm-going-to-kill-you-later smile she'd been using on Hobson all week as they sat. "Thanks for meeting me here."

"You must have quite the story in the works." He slid a handful of files across the table to her; she glanced at the tabs and cover sheet while he asked the waitress for coffee. 

"It's progressing." Toni scanned the diner. There were a handful of couples and two different families with kids in the polished chrome and red vinyl booths, and four people at the counter. Three waitresses in simple, fifties-style dresses took orders and handed out food. "Glad I can get your input, Detective. You have a rep for not cooperating with the press."

He looked up from the menu, startled. "I do?"

"I meant CPD in general." She shot him another grin, a real one this time, so he'd know she meant him in particular. She could have asked anyone to bring her the files; she could have had them delivered to the house and never made contact. But she'd missed having someone to talk the case out with, as evidenced by how much she'd let slip to Hobson that morning. And Paul knew, as much as anyone she worked with these days, how easy it was to get lost in an undercover story, even in a fairly lightweight assignment like this one. He must have understood her need for grounding, if he'd agreed to meet her on a Sunday. Didn't mean he wasn't going to do everything in his power to get a rise out of her.

"As long as we can share information about this case both ways." He leaned back in the booth. "What makes you think you're looking at a murder, Ms. Snow?"

"Several murders, actually." She'd never really played this game with him before, acting out an undercover role in public and loading everything she said with double meanings, but they fell into it with the same ease they'd developed over the last year or so. Not that it had always been easy, but she'd grown to like and trust Paul, and he was getting there with her. Her relationship with Hobson might throw a wrench into the progress they'd made, which was why she'd been trying to keep the extent of it off Paul's radar for the last couple months. How successful she'd been was up for debate; he was a detective, after all. 

She told him what she'd learned from her neighborhood snooping. "The way these people talk about some of these deaths, it's like they think it's normal for mirrors to fall and space heaters to explode. And maybe it is, once in a while, but—" She broke off when the waitress came to pour their coffee. 

"But you think there are too many to be coincidence," Paul finished after they'd ordered eggs and bagels.

Toni nodded. "That's why I asked for the ME's files on anything from the past twenty years in that area." She took a sip of her coffee. It was typical diner fare, with a slightly stale aftertaste even though it had just been brewed. 

"I brought what I could." Paul's expression was solemn, stern, thoroughly in character. "You can look through these here, take any notes that are relevant to your story, but I can't let you take them with you. And of course anything you publish has to be approved by CPD before you go to print."

She stared him down. "I thought we were in a cooperative relationship, Detective."

He lifted one shoulder in an oh-so-casual shrug. "If I let you take police property, it'll seem like I'm favoring the Sun-Times. We have to stay neutral in the newspaper wars." Now he was definitely playing with her, trying to see how deep her cover went. Far more subtly than Winslow would have, but it didn't matter what approach he took. She wasn't about to break.

"Not to worry," she said brightly. "No one at the Trib has caught a whiff of this, unless you've let it leak to them."

"Maybe I should. Just to be fair."

She raised an eyebrow, a trick that had taken her years of practice. Totally worth it for the way it broke down suspects under questioning. "Maybe you should make yourself useful and help me go through these."

"And why would I spend my Sunday doing that?"

Toni primly quoted the official CPD position on dealing with information requests from nosy reporters. "A free press means an informed public, and that's vital to the health of the community, Detective Armstrong."

He snorted, but he slipped a folder out from the middle of the stack. "If you say so, Ms. Snow. What exactly are we looking for?"

"Any accident that could have been arranged ahead of time. Any medical death that seems unusual, like an early stroke. Any case where evidence could have been eliminated or tampered with. And motive. Anything that connects the victims other than location."

"That's a wide scope, Ms. Snow. If you look close enough you can probably find the potential for foul play in all of these files, not to mention the ones I didn't bring."

"Now you're thinking like a paranoid cop." She drained the last of her coffee and set it on the edge of the table for a refill. "Which is exactly what I need." 

They fell into the rhythm they usually did researching a case at the station, reading silently and comparing notes when something struck them as odd. As morning wore into afternoon, the diner cleared out, until the only other customers were a young couple flirting at the counter. In addition to the deaths of Hugh Stamos, Ted O'Malley, and Patrick Maloney, the man who'd had a stroke at thirty-one, Toni had set aside five files that seemed worthy of further investigation. She was making a note to interview the families of the victims, if she could find them, when Paul cleared his throat. She looked up to find him watching her expectantly.

"You really think all those are murders?" The formal edge he'd put on earlier was gone; this was Paul asking Toni. "With Mulcahy's five, that makes, what, a baker's dozen? You know what that means."

It meant a serial killer; it meant someone who'd planned and successfully orchestrated murders for at least twenty years. It meant she was up against someone who was equal parts smart, reckless, and ruthless.

Either that, or it meant she was in too deep, seeing human evil where there was really only horrible luck. She rubbed at her temples. "I know, believe me. We can't make any assumptions in this, not until I figure out the connection among the victims. If any of them are victims."

"Yeah, okay." Paul pushed his empty plate to the edge of the table. "I'm just checking in here, making sure you're not—" He twirled his long fingers in the air, as though he was searching for a way to say it without offending her.

"Losing it? Maybe," she admitted. "It's been a long week." His gaze didn't waver. "What?"

"'Happily married'?" he asked, echoing what she'd said at least two hours ago. "You sure about that?"

She wasn't sure, not one bit. She wasn't sure what it meant that she freaked out when he was a couple hours late. She wasn't sure what to do when Hobson kissed her these day; she was torn between punching him and pushing him up against the nearest available wall and ripping off his clothes. But telling Paul all that would open the door to telling him so much more, including the one thing she couldn't. Hobson had made it very clear that he didn't want anyone else on the force to know about his magical newspaper, and in the interest of keeping up her own reputation as a sensible, no-nonsense detective, a detective who most certainly did not fall apart when the weirdo with the magical newspaper didn't show up on time for dinner, she was happy to oblige. 

"We're doing fine," she lied. "He's good with the neighbors. People seem to like him, so they talk to him." Some people liked talking to him a little too much, like the women who'd surrounded him at the grill yesterday. Not that she was jealous. 

"What about his…whatever the hell it is he does?"

"Hasn't been a problem."

Paul's usually smooth, rounded forehead creased. "Really? He hasn't had any premonitions? No vibes? No feelings?"

Toni wanted to look anywhere but at him, but she knew if she didn't hold his gaze he'd guess she knew Hobson's secret. Hell, he probably already suspected as much, and she didn't know what she would tell him if and when he called her on it. Drawing on all her years as an investigator and interrogator, she fixed him with the calmest, blandest face she could muster. "Not that I've heard about. Thank goodness," she added, and chuckled.

Paul didn't chuckle back. Even though they were still unnoticed—hell, the waitress hadn't come by to refill their cups in over forty minutes—he lowered his voice even more. "Look, we both know he can cause problems, but we both also know he's got good intentions. Really good intentions."

Toni blinked, hard. Maybe she was in an alternate universe, or maybe Sunday Paul was played by a different guy than the one who worked at North Station. "A year ago you would have said that the other way around."

"Yeah." He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. "That's the thing. A year ago, I thought he was a killer, and instead he saved both our lives. This spring he helped me put William Baylor away. And then this summer, that thing with the Guyettes and you and the baby, he came through for us on that, too."

"So what are you saying?"

"That maybe trusting Hobson isn't the worst move you could make with this case."

"We don't know if there even is a case."

"No, but if there does turn out to be something to it, I'm saying maybe you should let him in a little bit. Make sure he knows the truth, so that going forward he keeps doing the right thing."

Even though they'd dropped the cover story for the moment, Toni had a feeling Paul was still layering what he was saying, that he was talking about more than the case. Maybe he really had guessed more than she'd told him. Or maybe she'd given it away. "Are you kidding me with this stuff?"

"A little. But seriously, if the guy makes you happy…" If lifting an eyebrow was Toni's favorite interrogation technique, trailing off like that was his. Leave a statement open, and most suspects would squirm until they couldn't stand it, then blurt out what Paul wanted to know.

Toni wasn't one of his suspects. "If he makes me happy, what?"

Paul waited another beat, then sighed. "Then you should do what it takes to keep him around, even if he does drive the rest of us crazy. I like seeing you happy, okay? You're my friend, in case you haven't noticed."

The waitress was heading their way again. Finally. Toni kept her expression carefully neutral as she pulled the next file from the stack. 

"I'll keep that in mind, Detective Armstrong."

* * *

After he saved two skateboarders, a potential assault victim, and a flock of Scandinavian tourists, Gary called McGinty's from a pay phone in Grant Park to see how things were going. 

"Typical Sunday," Marissa told him. "A few extra people are here watching football, but it's nothing we can't handle." With her unerring intuition she added, "And I can tell by your voice you have some things going on that are not under control, so why don't you go work them out with her?"

"What do you mean, you can tell?" He'd tried to put the weirdness of the morning push-pull session with Toni out of his head while he'd stopped two accidents and a crime in the course of four hours. He thought he'd done a pretty good job of it.

"You sound all revved up, like you're ready for more. Usually by the time you've taken care of three stories you're exhausted and whiny."

"Whiny?"

"Like a toddler ready for a nap, my friend. But now you have that twist in your voice I usually hear before you head out to cover something really big. Or to go on a date with Toni. This late in the afternoon, I figure it has to be a little bit of both."

"That is the most ridiculous assumption you've ever made about me." He said it so emphatically a couple of girls on roller skates stared as they whooshed past.

"Not by a long shot," she retorted, unruffled.

"Yeah, well, I'll have you know there's absolutely nothing left for me to cover in the paper."

"So it's living with Toni that has you all wound up?"

"No. Yes. I don't know." He tried to pace with the phone before he remembered it was attached to the booth by its short, metal-wrapped cord. He couldn't take more than one step along the sidewalk in any direction. Maybe Marissa and Toni were both right about him needing a cell phone. "If this wasn't the weirdest relationship I'd ever had with a woman before this happened, it sure as hell is now that we've added complications from her job to the ones the paper always brings up. She nearly took my head off when I came home late Thursday."

"Maybe she had a right to. We were both worried."

"Oh, now you're going to hold that over my head, too?"

"I'm not—" She broke off with an exasperated sigh. "We were worried because we care, Gary." Her tone dropped from amused to sympathetic. "I'm sure things are uncomfortable between you and Toni, but you two are adults, and you both seem to thrive under pressure. You'll figure it out."

"Uh-huh." At the moment, he felt about as capable of figuring anything out as the seagull a few feet down the path who was struggling to get whatever crumbs it could out of a discarded box of popcorn.

"You know, a really smart friend of mine once told me I should be honest with a guy I liked, tell him how I felt, because it was the best way to figure out where our relationship was heading."

"You mean your relationship with the guy who tried to kill you?" Jeffery Craig had turned out to be more disturbed than either of them could have guessed when Marissa had first fallen for him.

"Despite Jeffery's…problem…it was good advice then, and I'm giving it back to you now. You've got to lay it on the line with Toni. Probably more than once, since she seems just as stubborn as you can be."

"I've tried, you know. Talking to her. She isn't the easiest person to get through to. I think I know what to say, but then it gets twisted." That's why he'd been trying to show Toni how he felt instead, which had only made things worse.

"I'm sure you find ways to make it harder than it should be. All you really have to do is tell her what you want. Make sure she knows it's not part of the undercover act."

Easier said than done, especially when he and Toni were both acutely aware of the microscope they were under at the moment. "What if that doesn't work?"

"Come back and talk to me." Marissa's chuckle was faint, and not unkind. "At least you can tell me I was wrong."

He blew out a breath. "Yeah, okay. I'll check in tomorrow. About the bar," he clarified. "I'll come by if I have time."

"Use the time to make it work with her. 'Bye, Gary."

He hopped on the red line south, then took a bus back to the neighborhood, hopping out a few blocks early to pick up a pair of gardening gloves for Toni at a drugstore. As he walked to the house, he found himself waving back when people he'd met in the past week or so called out to him. He even ran a couple basketball plays with the Walker kids in their driveway. All the, "Hi, Greg!"s still startled him, but he tried not to let his discomfort show. He didn't want to give Toni another reason to kick him out the door.

When he reached the house, the car was gone and the house was locked up, so he figured Toni was still working. Deciding the best way to blend in on a Sunday afternoon was to hang out in the yard like everyone else, he brought a beer out to the front porch. He'd just settled onto the swing when Cat leapt onto the porch railing and started pacing its length. "What's your deal?" Gary asked. Cat meowed, but it wasn't his urgent Fix Something In The Paper yowl. It was more like a comment, a call to have a good look around. 

Still, Gary pulled the paper from his back pocket and double checked. There was nothing in the Metro section left for him to deal with, and nothing on the front page, which was consumed with the presidential election. If it wasn't the paper Cat was trying to get him to notice, maybe it was something in the yard. Now that he took a good look around, he did have the feeling something had changed. It took him a minute to put a finger on what, until Cat nudged at the trowel he was sure Toni had left down in the flower bed. It now sat on the railing, clean and oily to the touch. His mom had always oiled her gardening tools before she put them away, but it wasn't something Toni seemed likely to do. 

Cat followed him when he walked down the steps and over to the flower bed. The dandelions were gone, and not just the ones Toni had pulled out and piled on the sidewalk. They were all gone, even the ones that had dotted the lawn, which he'd made a mental note to take care of when he had a chance.

"The Niceness Ninjas strike again," he muttered to Cat. "Did you have anything to do with this?" Cat just blinked at him.

Nothing for it but to thank them, he supposed. Maybe Toni was right, and he could end the cycle by saying thank you and leaving it at that. He headed next door, but no one answered when he rang the bell. As he crossed the driveway, a pile of gears and a toolbox outside Tim and Mike's garage caught his eye. 

Tim had teased Mike about his bike the night Gary and Toni had moved in next door; here was evidence he'd tried to fix it, but maybe not with the best of luck. The yellow frame leaned against the side of their garage, with the back wheel and gear assembly removed. Though the bike's broken chain lay in an awkward spiral on the ground, the tools were neatly lined up and oiled in their box. Gary gave the bike a lookover. It wasn't all that different from the one he'd had in high school. He took a swig of beer, set the bottle down next to the toolbox, and went to work. Cat curled up next to him on the sunny driveway.

He was on his knees, his hands covered in grease while he swore at the broken chain and the gear that for some reason didn't seem to fit where it was supposed to, when a friendly female voice chirped, "Hi there, Greg!"

He twisted around and saw one of the women who'd been flirting with him at the picnic halfway up the driveway, wearing workout clothes and jogging in place. "Hi, uh—"

"Heidi." Her dark ponytail bounced along as she continued to jog, not one bit out of breath. "What's up with the bike? Do you ride? There's great trail along the old railroad tracks south of here."

"I was just, uh, fixing it for a friend. For Mike. You know Mike?" Smooth, Gary. Very smooth.

"Oh, sure." Her smile was as sunny as the blue sky. "I pretty much know everyone here."

"You do, huh?" Gary stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. "Lived here a long time?"

"All my life, except when I went to college and a couple years after." She slowed her pace, barely lifting her heels off the pavement. "Chad and I bought my parents' house when they moved to Florida. He's at work again today, can you believe it?" Her smile took on a slightly odd cast, as if her flirting was tinged with regret. "We were so excited when he got his real estate license, and the commissions are great, but the hours are killer." 

"Yeah, I can see where the odd hours would be tough on you." He wasn't sure what else to say, and didn't even try to hide his relief when Toni pulled into the driveway. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses, but he was damn sure she was looking right at him as she passed them on her way to the garage. 

"Nia's lucky your job can only claim you when the markets are open." Heidi reached back and adjusted her pony tail, then picked up her pace. "I'd better get moving before my heart rate gets too low. See you later!" 

Gary waited before he turned back to the bike, expecting Toni to come over and at least say hello once she got out of the car, but she exited the garage, her arms full of file folders, and marched into the house without a glance in his direction.

"Guess we're in the doghouse again," he said to Cat, who responded with a yawn.

* * *

Toni would have to thank Paul for letting her take the files after all; if nothing else they reminded her this was a real case, with several possible real victims. It was easy to forget, in the cute spare bedroom of the cute home where she really needed to run the vacuum, if they had one, why she was there.

It was easy to forget a lot of things.

Like why anyone had thought dragging Hobson into this was a good idea. There he was, right outside the window of the cute bedroom, working on someone else's bike because he thought he owed the guy. Talking to one of the bored young housewives who'd "just happened" to jog by, or his cat when he thought he was alone, as though he fit in this almost suburban fantasy of a lifestyle. Pretending to be part of this so-normal-it-was-boring neighborhood when really he was a seething cauldron of—of what? Lust, maybe, though the fact he hadn't taken it any farther than a couple of kisses meant that might not be it. 

Baggage? Probably. He'd slipped far too easily into the rhythms of living with someone else for her to believe he'd completely forgotten what it was like to be married, even though he hadn't brought his ex-wife up once since they'd started this charade. 

Issues? Definitely, though what she'd thought had been insanity for so long turned out to be a magic newspaper. She'd proven she could live with that, provided it didn't get in the way of her work. So why the hell was he talking to the extra from a Disney movie and his cat instead of her? 

Wrong question. Toni's real problem wasn't with what had happened so far, and it wasn't fair to lay it at Hobson's feet. The real question was why it bothered her that they'd done nothing more in a week of living together than kiss. 

Some detective. She'd set boundaries to protect them both, and she didn't even know which one of them had crossed the line. 

She didn't plan it, but fifteen minutes later she was marching over to Tim and Mike's yard instead of adding to her spreadsheet and map of suspicious deaths. "You shouldn't encourage them, you know," she said when she was close enough for him to hear. 

Still on his knees, he turned away from the bike. At least it looked more like a bike than it had all week. The cat stretched and scooted out of the shadow Toni cast, into a sunnier patch. "They weeded our yard after they saw you out there this morning," Hobson said defensively. "I had to do something."

She crossed her arms, enjoying the chance to look down at him for once. "Marissa's a psych major, right? Hasn't she told you about reinforcement? If you keep retaliating with these random acts of kindness, so will they. Let it end with a simple, 'thank you,' and we won't have to worry about being in niceness debt to potential suspects."

"I thought they weren't suspects."

"Right now everyone is a suspect. Come on, we should make dinner. If you want to grill some chicken I'll make salsa and a salad."

"I can't leave this half done." He gestured at the tool box. "Hand me a wrench, will ya?"

"Which size?"

He looked surprised. "The ten millimeter. I think." She fished it out of its labeled compartment, and he used the nut he was tightening as an excuse to look away from her. "How'd things go in the city?"

"Fine." She shifted her stance, wishing she could shake off what Paul had said about Hobson, or at least shake off the deeper meaning in his words. She still wasn't sure if he'd intended that, or if that was her own overthinking. She crouched down next to him and whispered, "I think there might be more to this case than we first thought. We found more deaths that look suspicious, going back a while."

He frowned as he spun the pedal. The chain and the gears responded smoothly. "You might want to talk to Heidi."

"Heidi Preston? Your favorite flirt?"

"She wasn't—I mean, yeah, she was, but I wasn't." He handed her the wrench, braced himself on the bike, and stood, pulling Toni up with him. "She's lived here all her life. She might know more than you think."

Hobson probably didn't want to know what she really thought of Heidi, but she nodded. "Okay, I'll see what I can—"

"Yoooou-hoo!" Judy Healy waved and strode purposefully across the street, Fran Brennan at her heels. Judy carried a stack of books under one arm.

Hoping they weren't scrapbooks, Toni swallowed back a sigh and pasted on a smile. "Hey there, Judy. Fran. Lovely afternoon."

"You bet it is." Judy held up one of her books, an account of the Nicole Brown Simpson murder and O.J.'s Simpson's trial. "Fran and I were just at the library, and I told her you would be the perfect person to talk to about this." Fran rolled her eyes and switched her bag of books from one arm to the other. "I'm a bit of an aficionado," Judy added with a wink at Hobson.

"Really?" Toni asked. "I never would have thought you'd be into true crime." 

"Ha," Fran said. "Like she reads anything else." Toni was surprised at the note of real affection in Fran's voice; it was the first time she'd heard the woman sound anything but cranky. 

"Of course I read other things. Just last week I read Tuesdays with Morrie. But Frannie's right, my real passion is mysteries. True crime, fictional crime, it's all fascinating to me. I especially like stories about unusual detectives, like Miss Marple or that sweet Father Dowling. Every once in a while I get on a tear about a real life case. Comes with leading such a boring life, I guess. Now, you're an expert in the field, so which one do you think is the best for the O.J. case, the Marcia Clark book or the one by that Detective Fuhrman? I've read so many and I just can't tell which one to believe anymore."

The last time Toni had thought about O.J. Simpson she'd been working with the U.S. Marshals, but as a crime reporter she probably should have opinions. "I guess that's part of what interests us about crimes, isn't it?" she tried. "So many different points of view about the same fundamental events. Sometimes it's hard to get to the truth."

Behind her, Hobson closed the toolbox with a loud snap. When all three women looked his way, he flashed a crooked grin. "Sounds like you ladies have a lot to talk about. I'll leave you to it." 

But at that moment, Tim and Mike pulled up in their Audi, blocking the end of the driveway. Hobson swore under his breath, but not quietly enough, because Judy frowned. "Sorry," he said, gesturing at the bike. "I didn't want them to know it was me." 

"Greg, what the heck?" Mike hurried over to the bike and spun the pedals, then rolled it a few yards along the driveway. "You got it working? Oh my God, you got it working!"

"He's been trying to fix that thing for a solid month." Tim shook his head in disbelief. "Got so frustrated with it earlier I had to take him out for a drink."

"Yeah, well, I saw it there and thought—" Hobson shifted from foot to foot. Toni had to hand it to him. Whatever else he thought he was doing in this scenario, the "aw, shucks" reaction wasn't an act. "I mean, I had some extra time this afternoon since I didn't have to weed the lawn."

"This was just completely unnecessary, though," Tim insisted. "We'll have to pay you back somehow."

Hobson glanced at Toni. Some of her exasperation with this ever-escalating exchange of favors must have shown on her face, because when Tim said, "I know! What about—" Hobson cut him off.

"Dinner!" He rubbed his hands together, as if he were a villain foiling a hero's plan. "I almost forgot to ask you about dinner. We're having a little party this week to thank everyone who helped us move in. Wednesday night. Don't bring a thing, just yourselves. You and your husbands, too," he added to Judy and Fran, who seemed more perplexed than anything else. 

Toni felt the same way, but she heard herself saying, "Yes, please come. All of you." She sidled closer to Hobson and took his grease-stained hand, squeezing it unmercifully as she added, "We can't believe how lucky we are to have landed in such a friendly place, isn't that right, honey?"

"Mmm-hmm," Hobson squeaked. She waited another second or two, until she was sure he'd got the message, and released his hand. "Speaking of that, I'm going to run in and make up the, uh, grocery list. And the guest list. Lots of lists to make. That's my job." He backed up a few steps before he turned and fled into the house, the cat on his heels. 

Toni allowed herself a split second to imagine the fun she'd have eviscerating him in a few minutes before she repeated the invitation. "And you all have to promise not to bring anything," she added firmly. The last thing she needed was another opportunity for Hobson to trade belt notches with the neighbors. 

"Pinky swear." Tim waggled his little finger at her. 

When Mike took off on a bike ride, Toni started back for the house, thinking dark thoughts, but Judy came right along with her, grabbing her arm and swinging her around just before Toni reached the back door.

"Nia, honey, one more thing." Judy let go and resettled her load of books. "We have a neighborhood book club that meets next week. It's some of the younger girls from the neighborhood, and Rose Byrne and I. And of course Fran, when I can drag her along." Over Judy's shoulder, Toni saw Fran's scowl deepen. "We focus on mysteries, so obviously you have to come. Some of the younger women only show up to drink wine and gossip, but I think you could add so much to our understanding of the books."

Toni must have spent too much time pouring over files, because her first reaction was to wonder if a mystery book club would be the perfect front for a murder syndicate. Unlikely, since Rose Byrne was the wife of the cop who'd brought the case to Mulcahy.

"Sounds good," she said. "What should I read?"

"We're discussing the latest in the Cleo-Catra series." At Toni's blank look, Judy added, "The ones by Emily VanSanders? Cleo Allen is a pet groomer who solves mysteries with the help of her Siberian Forest cat. She breaks up a ring of drug smugglers in this one. I can loan you my copy."

"That'd be great." Toni would rather have listened to Winslow insult her over the course of a three-hour stakeout than read a book that would no doubt start her sneezing within the first chapter, but the more chances she had to interact with the neighbors, the better. "See you Wednesday night?"

"Oh, honey, I wouldn't miss it, but I'm sure I'll see you before then." Judy beamed at her one last time, and Toni bit her tongue to avoid asking if that was a promise or a threat. With a wave from Judy and a grunt from Fran, the two women started the walk back down the driveway and Toni went to confront Hobson.

He met her at the back door with a glass of Shiraz. "Long day," he said at her questioning look. "Figured you might want to relax."

"I don't have time to relax, Hobson." She took the wine and backed him up into the kitchen. "I have a case to solve, I have women wanting me to advise them on their leisure reading, and I have you orchestrating dinner parties every time I turn around." They stopped at the kitchen table, where Hobson had laid out a plate of cheese and crackers. 

And a pair of garden gloves with the tag still attached. "Seemed like they might come in handy," he said at her look.

She dropped into a chair. "A dinner party? What the hell were you thinking?" The question came out more weary than she'd originally intended.

"I can get whatever we need at McGinty's." He sat down across from her. "You don't sound as mad as I thought you'd be."

"What good would it do me if I was?" Sure, she wouldn't mind a knock-down-drag-out, or at least a bit of sparring to relieve the tension, but her attention had been diverted to the cop part of her brain. Something about the interaction she'd just had was niggling at her, but beyond the obvious--Judy's interest in mysteries--she couldn't pin down why. Judy and Fran were both in their seventies and had lived in the neighborhood for decades, but Judy seemed more nosy than murderous. Could Fran's crankiness be based on anything more than an Eeyore-like outlook? "I do want to know why you thought it was a good idea."

"Honestly, I thought it might be a way to stop the back and forth with Mike and Tim, since it seems to bother you. I figured if we got ahead for once, maybe they'd stop."

"You are still trying to win some imaginary contest, aren't you?" 

"Well, yeah." His admission was satisfyingly sheepish. "But I thought maybe you could invite some of your suspects, too. Try to get some more information, maybe even figure out which one of them is the killer."

"We are not Nick and Nora Charles."

His frown melted, inexplicably, into a faint smile. "See, that's why I like you, Brigatti. You appreciate the classics."

"You are nothing if not a throwback."

"Does that mean you appreciate me?"

"It means you need a cell phone." She stood. "Speaking of classics, I need to get back to work. Based on the files I looked at today, this case is older than I thought. Some of the suspicious deaths go all the way back to the Seventies."

"The Seventies?" He sat back, and she realized he'd gone awfully pale. Maybe he'd overdone it with the bike.

"Guy was electrocuted in the tub, over on the next block, back in 1976. He was listening to the radio and it fell in. His kids thought it was weird, because he usually took showers, but the cops didn't find any evidence of tampering at the time. Hard to know this far out, but still." She shrugged. "Sounds like something that would have been in your jurisdiction, doesn't it? Why didn't your magic paper catch that one?"

"Because I was fourteen years old and living in Hickory!" He spat it out, flinging himself back in his chair, but he didn't look angry. He looked half-scared. 

"Hobson, you don't think you actually should have—I wasn't saying that. You know I don't expect you to stop every bad thing that happens in this city. I'd be out of a job if you did."

He ran a hand over his mouth. "Yeah, but I could have read about Jessica Singer getting stung to death by yellowjackets. I should have."

Several realizations crowded her brain at once. "Is that why you keep doing nice things for Tim and Mike? Because they live in her house? Is that why you agreed to this in the first place?" She waited for him to say that it was, that his presence here had everything to do with his overdeveloped sense of responsibility for the world and nothing to do with her. Instead, he pinned her with a look so raw and hopeless she might just as well have stabbed him with the cheese knife. She sat back down.

"It wasn't your fault, Gary." He dropped his gaze to his plate when she said his name, but she wasn't going to stop until she got through to him. "Not then. Not now. CPD couldn't stop this guy because until now we didn't know these were murders, but that doesn't make it my fault. It's only my fault, or yours, if it happens again now that we know about it." He didn't answer. Didn't even look up.

"You said you saved lives yesterday morning. What were their names?"

"Tasha Freedman. But I—I exaggerated. She was only going to break her leg."

As if that mattered. "The boy with the parakeet?"

"José Reyes." 

"The woman who would have been carjacked?"

"Becca Keith."

"Her kids?"

He finally looked at her, eyes narrowed. "What's your point?"

The point was, he could name every single person he'd saved that week, and he was still taking on guilt for the people he hadn't. "You get to know they're still out there in one piece. Alive, with their families. I usually don't."

"Toni, I'm—"

She waved off what sounded like an apology, though for what, she wasn't sure. "Someone got that paper before you did, right? Do you think he deliberately ignored the deaths that happened in this neighborhood so he could, I don't know, make a fortune betting against the Cubs?"

Hobson shook his head. "He lived in a hotel room. Went fishing once in a while, but he didn't seem to have friends. He certainly never had time for this kind of stuff," he said, gesturing at the kitchen. At Toni. "The paper didn't let him have a life."

Had he just called her part of his life? "Or he didn't try to have one," she pointed out. "That insistence that every single thing that happens in this city is your responsibility, that's something you have inside. That he had inside," she amended at his expression, stricken yet somehow hopeful. She took a sip of her wine to let him process what she'd said, then added, "You know, once upon a time some smartass told me he didn't want to look back when he was sixty-five and say, 'You did a great job, but you forgot to get a life.'"

"You remember that?"

"Oh, yeah." It had taken a long time for her to realize it, but that had been the moment her perception of Gary Hobson, nocturnal agoraphobic, had begun to shift.

He blew out a breath. "Seems like it's my day for women throwing stuff I've said back in my face. I am trying to get a life. Why do you think I'm here?"

She tilted her head, letting herself tease him. "You felt like playing house?"

"I thought we were solving a crime. Together."

He said "solving a crime" as though he were a character in one of Judy's beloved novels. "I'm going to start calling you CleoCatra," she muttered.

"I don't care what you call me, as long as you let me help. I didn't come here to be your window dressing."

That was what it all boiled down to, the dinner party and the niceness war, and maybe even the flirting with Heidi and her friends. Maybe he figured if he ingratiated himself with everyone within a two-mile radius, he'd eventually find the murderer and absolve himself of the guilt he carried around. 

And maybe Paul was right, and it was time to let him in. She clinked her wine glass against his and waited for his questioning eyes to meet hers before she asked, "Want to help me make a timeline?" 

* * *

"Drunk Driver Injures Three; Neighbors Become Heroes"

"Police say an intoxicated driver is responsible for running a stop sign at West 96th Street and California Avenue at approximately four-twenty Monday afternoon. A black Ford Bronco, whose driver has not been identified, collided with a yellow Taurus, rupturing the gas tank. One occupant of the Taurus was thrown from the car and suffered a severe concussion. Two other occupants are in critical condition with third degree burns. If not for the efforts of local residents, who heard the crash and ran to help, the burn victims may not have survived. The driver of the Bronco that ran the stop sign and flipped on its side after colliding with the Taurus was not injured."

Gary could fix this. Far be it from him to deny anyone else the chance to be a hero, but he suspected the potential victims of the crash would appreciate not needing to be rescued at all. He jogged toward California from the Metra station, glad that for once in this undercover assignment something in the paper was on his way home. 

That is, he was glad until he heard his name called, just before he reached the intersection. 

"Greg! Hey, Greg Snow, that you?"

He pulled up short. A man, white, older, with a nearly square face and salt and pepper mustache and hair, waved and tugged the dog he was walking up to the stop sign. He held out a hand to shake. "Jim Bryne. We met briefly at the block party, but didn't have time to talk."

The ex-cop. Just what Gary needed. He shook the guy's hand anyway. "Yeah, sure, I remember."

"Such a gorgeous day. Had to get Rockford here out for a walk." The little brown daschund at the end of the leash gave Gary's shoes a sniff, then went back to nosing the grass around the sign. "How do you like the neighborhood?"

"It's great, it's, uh, a really friendly place." Belatedly, Gary realized he'd gestured at the tree-lined streets with the next day's newspaper. He rolled it up and tucked it in his suit jacket. "You lived here long?"

"Since I was walking a beat. You know, I have to say you look a little familiar." Jim looked him up and down while Gary tried frantically to remember if he'd ever had a run-in with the cops in this part of town. 

"You ever invest your money at Strauss and Associates? That's where I work. In stocks. And investments. Investments in stocks." Gary was spared any further explanations when he heard a car coming. The yellow Taurus was headed right for the intersection. He looked down the cross street. Yup, a black Bronco was barreling down on the same spot. "Hold this." He shoved his briefcase off on Jim and jumped into the street just before the intersection, facing the Taurus. 

Waving his arms, Gary stood his ground while the Taurus's driver honked at him, then slammed on the brakes. Behind him, the Bronco blew through the intersection, swerving to avoid Gary. The driver must have overcorrected, though, because as the Bronco cleared the intersection, it started into a skid and plowed into a lamp post about twenty yards away. 

People came pouring out of their houses, just as the paper had described, but they didn't have to pull anyone out of a fiery wreck. The pole leaned slightly into the street, but the Bronco only took a little damage to the bumper and hood. The driver disentangled himself from the air bags and staggered out of the Bronco under his own power. "Hey, did you guys see that? That pole jumped at me! Now how am I supposed to get to my kid's soccer game?"

The neighbors surrounded him; Gary made sure someone took the guy's keys and someone else called 911. They were a few blocks over from the neighborhood where Toni was investigating, so Jim was the only one he recognized, but that one was more than enough.

"That was some stunt, son." Jim handed Gary the briefcase. "How'd you know to do that?"

"I had a hunch." It was an excuse that didn't work on cops, but Gary didn't have a better one at hand. "Saw the Bronco coming and I thought maybe it would be safer if the intersection was clear." 

Jim didn't look any more convinced than the occupants of the Taurus, who'd pulled over to the curb and were out of the car, looking in disbelief from the wrecked Bronco to Gary. A siren closed in from not too far away. Time to get going.

"I'm going to go before—uh. Before I'm late for supper or something. Good to see you," he told Jim. 

"Hold up there, Greg. You can't go. You just witnessed a crime."

Not the crime that could have happened, though. Gary hated sticking around the aftermath of accidents. In addition to the tap dancing he had to do to keep the paper out of his statement, half the time he'd get calls later from insurance companies and lawyers who wanted him to give depositions or, worse yet, testify in court. "I really only saw the Taurus," he lied. "You had a better view."

Jim set his jaw, making his square face even squarer. "I can't let you do this."

Gary thought fast. "Okay, here's the thing. My wife, Nia. She's a reporter, and if she hasn't already had a call to cover this story, someone she knows will. Either way, she'll find out what I did, stepping in front of the car like that. I really don't need that kind of grief. She worries about me enough as it is."

Jim's brow creased into three perfectly straight lines. "Why would she worry about you? I thought you were a financial advisor."

"I am! I am. It's just, well, I have a history of being a little reckless. Used to have a Harley, back before we got married. I was young and dumb, you know how it goes. Jim, please, she'll have my hide if she finds out I did this."

The sirens closed in. Jim looked from the knot of people around the Bronco to the little group by the Taurus, then back at Gary. "I won't lie for you, you hear me? I'm going to have to tell them what happened. But if you want your name out of it, since no one was hurt here except the pole, I guess I'll keep quiet. This time."

"Thank you. Really, thanks. This means a lot." Gary didn't have to pretend to be relieved. He shook Jim's hand and hustled away from the scene. It didn't matter if Toni found out; since yesterday's détente they'd been more open with each other and he was enjoying it. It was her colleagues he worried about, the other thousands of cops in Chicago who he couldn't seem to avoid, even the retired ones.

He was a block from home before he paused to wonder what Jim had meant by, "This time."

* * *

By Tuesday, Toni was seeing timelines, maps, and spreadsheets in her sleep, and her eyes were worn out from hours of reading files and microfilm, but nothing she had fit a pattern. There were plenty of deaths that might be murders, but she had no way to prove intent. 

Hobson went into the city as usual, muttering about popcorn and how much he hated heights. "Be careful," she said as he left, and was surprised to find she meant it. He'd told her about his stupid stunt the day before, but as much as she hated him jumping into traffic, his methods seemed to work for him most of the time. 

"All I've done so far is add to the variables by finding more weird accidents," she admitted to Mulcahy during that morning's briefing. They were doing this one over the phone; Toni already had all the information CPD could supply. Any intel she could pick up from the neighborhood itself would be far more valuable at this point. "No one looks good for this,"

"That's why they've gotten away with it for so long," he insisted. "You need to dig deeper and find the connection, the thing that sets this guy off. Maybe talk to Jim Byrne, see if he has any new theories."

"He doesn't know who I am?"

"I didn't tell him about you because I didn't want to get his hopes up until we had something concrete. Use your cover. Tell him Aaron Singer's been buzzing around the paper trying to stir something up, and he sent you to Jim."

"What about Hobson?"

"Why the hell would he know the first thing about a civilian from the North Side?"

Why, indeed. Mulcahy must have taken Banks at his word, instead of taking a look at Hobson's file. Files, plural. He'd had too many encounters with CPD to fit into one folder.

When she called Byrnes, she identified herself as Nia Snow, Sun-Times reporter. He sounded eager to talk to her about Jessica Singer, and while she walked the quarter mile or so to his place, waving at the joggers who all seemed more interested in her fake husband than in her, she reminded himself that he was a retired cop, looking for something to keep his mind busy now that he wasn't immersed in half a dozen real cases. He might invent a case just to keep from dying of boredom.

Of course, she'd thought the same thing about Zeke Crumb a little over a year ago, and the guy had turned out to be more right than even he had realized at first.

The brick house sat back from the street, shaded by a tree, but it didn't have a front porch like hers. Like the one she was squatting in, she reminded herself. The house on Hoyne Street was no more hers than the Sears Tower. As Toni strode up the front walk, she could see a table at the big picture window, and Byrne sitting at it. He saluted her with a mug when she waved, then met her at the door along with a small brown wiener dog who barked and jumped, turning itself in complete circles in midair.

"Glad the paper's taking an interest in this case after so long. This is Rockford." 

"Cute." Toni was as allergic to some dogs as she was to cats, and she never knew what would set her off. Lucky for her, Hobson had mentioned Byrne's dog when telling her about the accident he'd averted, and she'd taken antihistamines half an hour ago. As long as the little monster didn't crawl up into her lap and shed all over her, she'd be good.

"You're here to ask about the Singer case?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes. I'm not on the drunk driver who crashed yesterday," she said with a small smirk. He blinked. "Greg thinks he can get away with not telling me everything, but it never works. Thank you for trying to keep his secret, though."

"Smart. I like that in an investigator. Come on in and sit. I'll get you coffee."

The dog followed Byrne to the kitchen. Toni sat on a flowered couch. Piles of evidence folders overwhelmed the small table by the window. File boxes were stacked three high and two deep along the wall across from her, completely blocking the fireplace. 

"So Aaron convinced you this was murder?" Byrne asked when he returned. The dog trotted under the table and curled up into a ball.

"He convinced me it might be," Toni said honestly, taking the mug of coffee he offered, navy blue with the CPD star emblazoned in gold. "Thanks, Mr. Byrne."

"Jim. Figured you'd like it black. You reporter types always seem to drink it straight, just like us cops."

"Comes with the hours. Late night deadlines." Toni pulled a notebook and pen from her bag. "About Jessica Singer. I can see why Aaron's convinced someone planted the insects and emptied her EpiPen, but even he can't give me a reason why anyone would do that. Do you have any theories?"

He laughed and sat at the single, straight-backed chair by the table. "How long do you have? Because this thing goes a lot deeper than Jess Singer's death."

Toni set her mug on the coffee table. "I spoke to Captain Mulcahy. He said you're thinking several people may have been killed over the years." Mulcahy hadn't authorized her to say that, but she wanted to move the discussion forward. 

Jim spent a few minutes telling Toni what she already knew about the Singer case and the deaths in the files Mulcahy had first handed her. She nodded along. "So what's in all these boxes?"

His jaw seemed even squarer as he considered her. Toni had the feeling he saw more than she wanted him to. Finally, as if he'd decided how much he could trust her with, he said, "I've traced every death in a three-block radius centered on Hoyne Avenue and 98th Street over the past fifty years."

Toni choked on her coffee. "Fifty years? Every death?" 

"Yup. At houses, in hospitals, on out-of-town trips, as long as it's someone who lived here, I've taken a look. All six hundred seventy-two of them."

"Isn't that overkill?" She'd obviously been right about him having too much time on his hands, but this level of evidence gathering, while impressive, also posed another potential problem. "I mean, won't you obscure any real pattern of suspicious deaths if you look too closely at every single death?"

"I've been trying to build a case for a serial killer. One who's trickier than any I ever dealt with as a cop, if you can believe that. I've seen some terrible things happen. Terrible things. But if this has been going on right under my nose, that puts it right up there with the worst of them." Something about his eyes reminded her of Hobson's, even though they were blue. Guilt, she thought. This guy was carrying an equally misplaced burden of guilt. Crumb had told her once that every retired cop was haunted by at least one unsolved case. Despite her best interrogation tactics, she hadn't been able to get Crumb to admit to his, but this was obviously Byrne's.

He shook his head as if he wanted to derail his own train of thought. "I'm sure you've seen some strange stuff on your beat as a reporter, Ms. Snow. You ever write a serial killer story?"

Tread carefully, Toni thought. This guy was still sharp. She hadn't been in Chicago long enough to sound credibly informed on many ongoing cases. "Only the one that turned out to be a serial case at the very end. Remember when Frank Scanlon was killed last year?"

Jim nodded. "That was terrible. Terrible. That our own people would do that, and try to blame an innocent man…" He trailed off, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "A man who looked an awful lot like that husband of yours, come to think of it."

Shit. She'd stepped right into that one. "Did he?"

He pushed off from his chair and stood over her. "You're not a reporter, are you?"

She met his eyes for a long moment. What the hell was she supposed to do now? Hopefully Mulcahy would forgive her the slipup; after all, he'd never said she couldn't tell Byrne if he guessed. Not that she'd asked what to do if this happened. Still, she could get a heck of a lot more done if she didn't have to spend all her mental energy figuring out how to tap-dance around the truth. And the truth was, she liked what she'd seen of Byrne so far. He was dedicated, if a little bit too much; he'd put the fear of God into Hobson. If she wanted his help with this case, she was going to have to level with him.

She pulled her wallet with her badge from her bag and flipped it open, holding it up for his inspection. "Toni Brigatti. Detective, North Side. Mulcahy thought low-key undercover surveillance might turn up something that would bring this whole case into focus, but so far it looks like you have a whole lot more than I've been able to find."

He shook his head ruefully. "Should have figured it out sooner. Your partner, though, I never would have guessed he's a cop."

"He's more of a consultant." Then, to turn his attention away from what should have been the simplest aspect of her operation but most definitely was not, she asked, "If this is a serial killer, how do we spot him? I was serious when I said I haven't worked a case like this before."

Jim resumed his seat. "Ordinarily I'd say we look for someone with a troubled childhood. Serial killers are typically male, white, single, and smart in their own way."

Toni nodded; that much was basic knowledge. "But they're usually young, right?" She waved a hand at the toppling piles of paperwork. "If you've found anything that goes back fifty years, we must be looking at someone who's been killing for, what? Decades?"

"For longer than you've been alive, Detective." He tapped a finger on a blue file folder about half an inch thick. "These are the ones that seem the most suspicious. The oldest happened in 1962."

"May I?" Toni looked over his list; there were several deaths that she had pegged in her own searches through the records, and about a dozen that she hadn't. 

"Now I'm not saying all of these are likely to be connected," he admitted. "But I'd be surprised if at least half of them weren't. It's just a matter of figuring out which half."

"And why," Toni added. "There are a lot of accidents in here that someone could have set up, you're right, but there's not a lot connecting the victims. Why would someone want to kill a forty year-old nurse, a retired pipefitter, and a teenage grunge rocker?"

"No idea." Jim sighed. "I've asked myself that so many times, and I've never been able to find the common thread. Maybe it's the differences that makes this guy pick them. Maybe it's the challenge of finding a different way every time, and who the victim is doesn't matter at all. Or maybe it's something my old eyes are too clouded to see."

"If we can't figure out why, we're back to asking who. What else do we know about serial killers?"

A woman's voice answered her. "They keep souvenirs." Rose Byrne walked into the room, presumably from the kitchen, since she had a coffee pot in hand. She refilled Jim and Toni's cups, then perched on the arm of the sofa with a wink at Toni. "Pictures, newspaper clippings, any evidence that the crime was noticed."

Toni decided to play along. She shot a pointed glance from the loaded table to the stacks of boxes behind Jim. "Should I consider you a suspect?"

"I'm old enough to fit this particular profile, it's true." Jim's eyes twinkled. He reached up and patted the hand Rose had placed on his shoulder. "And this could be my shrine. But if I was the killer, why would I call attention to myself by asking Mulcahy to look into the killings I'd been getting away with for decades?" 

Toni wondered if this was more than simple teasing initiated by an exasperated wife. Maybe it was a test; maybe the old guy was looking for someone to coach. "Okay, so if you're the killer, you're looking at the end of your run. You're retired from your day job, a little bored sometimes, and you want to up the ante. Maybe you're looking for credit."

"Credit?" Rose asked. 

"Sometimes these killers think they're doing the world a favor. Saving the rest of us from whatever it is the victims did that bothered the killer. Sounds like something a cop gone wrong would do, and fifty years is a long time to go unheralded."

Jim's grin spread. "I like you, Detective."

Toni glanced at Rose.

"Oh, please," Rose said. "I knew you weren't a reporter after watching you watch the rest of us at the block party."

"Reporters are observers," Toni pointed out.

"Sweetie, my dad walked a beat, and two years after retirement this guy has yet to leave the job. I've been around cops my whole life, and you walk, talk, and even sit like one of them. Plus, if Jim's opening up to you about his latest obsession like this, you can't be anything but a cop."

"You won't say anything to the rest of the neighborhood, will you? Not even to the mystery book club?"

"Especially not to them. Judy means well, but she doesn't understand the first thing about how real crimes are solved." The look that crossed Rose's face spoke of long nights waiting for assurance that her husband had lived through his cases. He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. "And the rest of them are just in it for the wine and chatter, as am I."

"My Rose is the last person you need to worry about," Jim assured Toni.

"What about you? You sure you're not our killer?" 

"Not that you should take my word for it, but no, I'm no more a killer than your consultant. I appreciate that Dan is willing to send somebody, though. That Jessica, she was a kind young woman. Volunteered at a soup kitchen, protested against the death penalty. She didn't deserve what happened to her, and I saw how careful she and Aaron were about her allergies. She wouldn't have tried to use an empty Epi-pen. Whoever hurt her, I want him stopped before he takes another life."

Toni nodded. The obvious tenderness between Jim and Rose made her worry about what would happen if the killer targeted one or the other of them. Jim was so eager to solve the case that he could easily tip his hand to the killer before they pinpointed who it was. "Let's get to work."

* * *

"Hey, Mr. H. Smooth suit." Lucas, one of McGinty's latest hires, shifted a tray to one arm and held up a hand. Gary high-fived him while the rest of the servers streamed around them, working on the post-lunch cleanup. "You take a second job?"

"Something like that," Gary muttered. At the moment he wasn't too thrilled with his primary job, which had required him to venture onto a scaffolding thirty stories up and wake up a window washer who'd fallen asleep on the job right before winds started gusting off the lake. Thanks to the effort he'd expended hauling the guy back inside, he had a sore shoulder and a rip in the armhole of his jacket.

"Watch out for the ladies. They really go for the professional look," Lucas advised, and swooped out onto the floor to clear tables.

Gary found Marissa in the kitchen, directing the cooks with the same fierce concentration she applied to her studies and to helping him with the paper. He stood back to watch for a minute, arms crossed as he kept out of the way by one of the storage shelves. 

"Don't skimp on the onion rings, Harrelson. At least eight big ones per order. We don't want our customers going home grumpy."

"Mr. Hobson said to cut back last week." Harrelson caught Gary's eye and sent him a pleading look, begging him not to contradict what they both knew was a blatant lie.

"He wouldn't say any such thing, but if that's really what he wants, he can tell me himself." Marissa whirled on him. "Gary? Care to weigh in?"

"Eight, like the lady said," he told Harrelson. "And throw in a few of the smaller ones for good measure. How'd you know I was there?" he asked as he followed Marissa into the office.

The tiny, triumphant noise she made, a little "ha" from the back of her throat, told him she was never going to give away that particular secret. "Smelled the gabardine," she said with a smirk. "And the movie popcorn."

"Yeah, the popper at the AMC kind of exploded during the morning showing of Almost Famous. Would have taken out Roger Ebert and Maureen Ryan." 

"Nice save, partner. What's up next?"

Gary pulled the paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket, which he supposed was one tiny advantage to wearing a suit. He turned a few pages to make sure nothing new had shown up. "There's a convenience store robbery at three-thirty. Thought I'd make sure everything's running smoothly here first. Not that I doubt your ability to manage," he added quickly. 

"I wouldn't mind a little help, if you have time. Payday's Friday. If you want to sign the checks, I'll print them out now. We could do with a spot check of our liquor inventory as well." 

"Yeah, sure, sounds great." Instead of getting up to do the inventory, though, he leaned back in his chair, letting its familiar creak lull him into a temporary stupor. 

Marissa put on her headphones, tapped a few keys, and then took the headphones off when the printer started whirring. "Checks are printing. So tell me, what's the real reason you're here? Does it have anything to do with what we talked about Sunday?"

"Maybe," Gary admitted. "I needed to get out of that neighborhood for a while. Feels like being on display at the Shedd sometimes. Plus last night was my night to sleep on the guest bed and that mattress is three inches high, tops. Thought maybe I could take a quick nap upstairs."

"You always say you're going to nap, and you never do. You and Toni are trading beds?"

"Well, yeah, we're not sleeping together." When Marissa looked slightly crestfallen, he added, "She's on assignment, for Pete's sake. If her bosses found out we were…acting like we were married...when the neighbors aren't watching, she could lose her job."

"I didn't mean to pry."

"The hell you didn't," he said lightly, so she'd know he didn't mind too much. Despite their daily check-ins, he'd missed having her around on a regular schedule more than once over the past week or so; missed getting teased and teasing her right back, and missed the way she could cut through the bullshit and help him see when he was getting in his own way.

"I just wonder how much of your discombobulation is because of the neighbors and Toni's job, and how much of it is just you two getting used to spending so much time together."

"Probably both." Rolling over to the printer in his chair, Gary grabbed the stack of checks, then rolled back to his desk and began signing them. "Discombobulation? Is that an official psychological term?"

"I'm sure it's in the DSM," she said cheerfully. "Want me to look it up for you?"

"Oh, yeah, that's what I need, a diagnosis by an amateur psychologist."

"Amateur? I'll have you know I'm applying to graduate school. In a few years I'll be authorized to diagnose every single thing that's wrong with you." 

"Gonna be a long list."

She shook her head. "There's nothing wrong with you that a little bit of honesty won't fix. And maybe a decade of therapy."

"You know something? The smarter you get, the scarier you get. Speaking of things that make me nuts," he added as Cat jumped up from wherever he had been, which as far as Gary could tell had not been the floor or anywhere else in the office, and landed on the checks. "You think you can you keep Cat here at the bar when he's not delivering the paper?"

"Who can keep him anywhere? I thought he and Toni were getting along now."

"Marginally. But some of the neighbors don't like him. This old guy next door, Steve Brennan? He told me I'd better keep the cat inside because pets tend to go missing if they aren't looked out for." Steve's pronouncement, delivered when Gary had returned the spreader, had left Gary feeling uneasy ever since. "It sounded like a threat."

"Anyone who doesn't like Cat should be a suspect."

"Toni didn't like him at first. For that matter, neither did I." He swatted, but Cat sat on the pen and pawed at Gary's hand. "Get down, will ya? Not you, Marissa," he added quickly.

"I know it's not me."

"I just—he won't—oh hell," Gary finished when Cat slid his paw over to the paper and started kneading the front page. "Must be something new." Marissa went still while Gary flipped through the paper. "Here it is, page eight. 'Mower accident injures—'" He broke off, swallowing hard when he read the name. "Why the hell wasn't this here earlier? I must have done something, but I haven't been anywhere near there all day."

"What could you have done? Gary, what's the story?"

"It's one of our neighbors. 'Mike Yang, thirty-six, was critically injured when a lawnmower blade broke free as he was cutting the yard at—' Wait a minute, this isn't his address, this is ours. Damn it, this really is my fault. Look up a phone number, will you?" He spelled out Mike's last name for Marissa while he dialed the house, but Toni didn't pick up. No one answered at Mike and Tim's, either. "I gotta go."

"You'd better be back at some point, mister. I want the whole story. And I want to know your friend is okay, not to mention you."

"I'll be in touch," he promised. He dialed once more, this time for a cab, then ran out the door to meet it at the corner. 

Fifteen minutes and a hefty tip later, he jumped out of the cab in front of the house on South Hoyne, where Mike was pushing the mower across their shared driveway. 

"Get away from that!" Gary ran for him, yanking him away from the mower. It chugged along for a few more feet, then hit what must have been a rock. An angry metallic screech echoed down the block. The mower sputtered and clanked and tilted onto its side, and the blade came whirring toward them. Gary pulled Mike down to the pavement with him. The blade circled over their heads and landed with a clatter a few yards away.

"What the hell?" Toni came running from the back door, reaching for her back waistband even though Gary was fairly sure she'd given up wearing her gun around the house.

"Nia!" Proud of himself for remembering to call her the cover name when she was moving and looking more like a detective than ever, he sat up and waved an arm. "We're okay." Her eyes huge, round, she stared from Gary and Mike to the upended mower. "It's the blade, it must have come loose, but we're okay. Both of us."

"How'd you know?" Mike asked. Toni closed her eyes; Gary swore he saw her counting to ten.

"Lucky guess." Gary rubbed his hands together to dislodge the tiny pebbles embedded in his palms. "I had to—I mean, I spilled something on my suit at lunch and I came home to change. You okay?"

Mike nodded. A few other neighbors—kids walking home from school, Judy from across the street—stopped to ask what had happened. Gary and Toni locked eyes. He could see the wheels turning in her head, and he knew exactly which direction they were going. If not for the paper, Mike might have been added to the rolls of victims of suspicious accidents.

"How likely is it for a mower blade to come loose like that?" Toni started for the mower while Gary and Mike staggered to their feet.

"You, uh—" Mike was about Gary 's height, but he'd put his hands on his knees to catch his breath, so he looked up at Gary, pointing to his shoulder. "Your suit has more than a stain now."

Gary lifted his arm. The rip he'd gotten on the scaffolding downtown had lengthened; the sleeve hung onto the jacket by a couple of inches. "No big deal." He shrugged out of the jacket, using the motion to surreptitiously check the paper. Based on what he could see of the page he'd turned it open to, the headline about Mike's death was gone.

"The hell it's not. You saved my life!" Mike ended up calling the last part after him, because Gary'd dropped the jacket and jogged across the yard to where Toni stood, hands on hips, glaring down at the lawn mower.

"This was not an accident," she growled.

Gary was inclined to agree, but more neighbors were gathering in their driveway: Leo, Wayne, even Steve and Fran Brennan. All the older people who were likely to be home during the day. All people who'd lived around here for years. All possible suspects. The last thing Gary wanted was for one of them to realize Toni was on their trail.

"I agree, honey, this was a terrible accident," he said loudly. "Lucky nobody was hurt."

After a split-second, exasperated glare, she shook off his hand and marched over to Tim and Mike's yard. Steve and Leo were bent over the mower blade. "Don't touch that!" she snapped. When everyone turned to stare at her, she added, "I want to get a photo of it exactly where it landed. For the paper. It'll make a good human interest story. The dangers of lawn maintenance. Be right back."

She strode off, leaving Gary to shepherd Steve and Leo back to the driveway, where everyone was fussing over Mike. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Really. Thanks to Greg."

"Goodness, Greg." Judy put a hand on his arm. "What would we have done without you? Mike might have ended up like poor Jessica if you hadn't been here." She shook her head, and her short, steel-grey curls bobbed. "I know I shouldn't believe such things, but I'm starting to wonder if that house is cursed."

Toni came back out with her camera and the garden gloves. The neighbors dispersed while she took photos. Mike, who still looked awfully pale, bent down to pick up the jacket Gary'd dropped. "I'm going to get this fixed for you. Hell, I'll get you a whole new suit."

"That's okay." Gary grabbed it out of his hands before he could get a good look at the paper in the inside jacket pocket. "Really, I have to get it to my tailor anyway. It's never fit right."

"You'd better send me the bill." Then, when Toni joined them on the driveway, holding the mower blade in her gloved hands, he added, "You know, I just had that thing tuned up last month. There's no way the blade should have been loose." 

Toni stared at the blade balanced in her hands. Gary wondered if she could see fingerprints. "I have a friend who works in forensics for CPD," she said, low and serious. "Would you be okay if I had him take a look at this?"

Mike gulped. "You think someone did this on purpose? Someone tried to kill me?"

"Probably not." Gary could tell Toni was trying to keep her tone light, but she didn't smile. 

"We're just glad you're okay," Gary said honestly. None of the neighbors had looked anything but relieved as far as he could tell.

At that moment, Tim pulled up in the Audi. "Guess I'd better tell him," Mike said. "He'll be mad."

"Wasn't your fault," Gary said.

"At the mower. Or fate. Whatever. He gets scared, that makes him mad."

"Yeah, that's how some people are." Gary shot a look at Toni, who rolled her eyes at him and took the blade to their garage.

Once Tim had thanked him far too profusely for comfort and the guys had gone inside, Gary traced a path from the mower back to the spot on the driveway where he'd first seen Mike. Right at the boundary between concrete and grass he spotted a rock about the size of his fist, grey limestone that didn't match the landscaping in the yard. He picked it up, showing Toni the white scrapes the blade had left on its surface when she joined him. "Don't seem to be any other rocks lying around. What are the chances he'd just happen to hit it with the mower on a day when his blade was loose?"

"Not great," she muttered. "Guess I have to start checking the neighborhood for yards with rocks like that."

"It could have been some kids playing, throwing them around," he pointed out. "But yeah, I'll keep an eye out, too."

"Thanks," she said, and seemed to mean it. As he righted the mower and pushed it toward their garage, she let out a wry laugh.

"What?"

"You saw this was going to happen? In your paper?"

"Well, yeah. Why else would I have shown up?" Which reminded him--it hadn't been the last thing in the paper. "What time is it?"

"A little after three. Why?"

Gary doubled his pace. "I have to get back to the south Loop and stop a robbery. Is it okay if I take the car?" He swung the mower into the garage, then realized he'd need keys. But Toni blocked his path back to the house, one hand out like a traffic cop. 

"Where and when?"

"What?"

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed. "Details, Hobson, now."

"Three-thirty, the White Hen at Ninth and Polk, two guys in Halloween masks. Ninja Turtles, I think. They're going to stab a customer, Toni. I have to get up there now."

Shaking her head, Toni put the phone up to her ear. "This is Detective Brigatti, North District, badge number 11862. I need a car at the White Hen on Ninth and Polk for a robbery in progress. Be advised, suspects are armed with knives…Description?" She looked to Gary, who shrugged. The paper hadn't said anything about height or weight. "Two guys in green masks, that's all I've got. Get somebody down there right away. Thanks."

She flipped the phone closed.

"What was that?"

"That was me, using up some of my collateral with the system to help you out, like I said I would. What, you didn't believe me?"

"You drew the line at firearms. These guys don't have guns."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She closed the distance between them with a stomp. "A knife can do just as much damage as a gun! I am not going to explain to our neighbors or my bosses why a civilian, a stock broker or a bartender or whatever it is you're supposed to be, got stabbed trying to thwart a robbery half an hour after a mower blade nearly took your head off."

"I could've stopped anyone from getting stabbed, including myself. It's not like I haven't done it before. There are ways around—" He broke off, realizing what she'd said. What it meant. "Aw, Brigatti, you care about me, don't you?"

She pressed her lips together, radiating exasperation, though Gary couldn't tell if it was because he'd guessed wrong, or because he'd found her out. "I care about civilians not getting stabbed and businesses not getting robbed. I care about things being done right. You couldn't get up there and find a parking place in the next fifteen minutes, let alone stop the robbery."

Gary took a half step closer, wanting more than ever to strip away any pretense. But he'd promised to stop showing her how he felt. Damn rules. "That's very noble of you, Detective."

Her lips parted. She drew in a shaky breath, then let it out in a whoosh, along with,"Checkyourpaper."

"What?"

She stepped back, gesturing at the battered suit jacket still draped over his arm. "Check your paper, Hobson. Make sure there's no stabbing."

"Oh, yeah." He fumbled for a bit getting it out of the pocket. When he turned to page three, where he'd seen the original story, he found a different headline. "'Chicago Police Foil Armed Robbery,'" he read. "Looks like you saved the day."

"Wasn't me." She flashed him a tiny grin over her shoulder as she headed toward the house. Gary thought he read an apology for what could have happened between them a moment ago, but with Toni, he could never be sure. "Congratulations," she added when he fell into step with her. 

"For what?"

She nodded toward the house next door. "Pretty sure you've won the niceness war."

* * *

Toni let Hobson set the guest list for the dinner party, which was probably a mistake. In addition to the three couples he'd invited on his first whim, he added Phil and Laura, Heidi and her husband Chad, and Leo and Bill, most of them because he'd run into them and started chatting. Whatever problems his participation in this assignment had caused, his ability to make friends wasn't one. 

Fourteen people seemed like too many until she reminded herself that Brigatti family gatherings, when all her brothers and their kids were able to attend, were pushing twenty these days. Once she realized that, she insisted on doing the cooking, even though it meant giving up a day searching through files and microfilm. The only thing that would do was Nonna Brigatti's lasagna. No way did she trust Hobson with the recipe, let alone have a hope he'd get it right, even if he did manage to make it home in time. Which he did not. He was gone all Wednesday doing whatever the hell it was he did with his magic paper. Almost everyone else arrived before Hobson did.

Greg, she reminded herself. Greg, Greg, Greg. Maybe it was good they had this time to playact, that she had the false front of Greg Snow at whom she could aim all her frustration. Greg worked late all the time, she told their guests as she handed out wine and whisky; it bothered her, she confided to Laura and Judy, but her own job forced her to work odd hours, so she could hardly complain.

"Of course you can complain, dear, especially when he's late for a meal like this," Judy said kindly. "The kitchen smells amazing!"

Toni was pulling the lasagna out of the oven when the doorbell rang. Laura went to get it. Mike and Tim sauntered into the kitchen with a huge white bag with the Weber's logo on it and a salad bowl the size of a birdbath, along with two bottles of wine. "We couldn't let you do all the cooking," Tim said, trying and utterly failing to look abashed at Toni's exasperation. "Not after what Greg did for Mike." He pulled a chocolate apricot torte fit for a wedding out of the bakery bag just as Hobson came through the back door. 

"Wow, that looks great," he said, then peered at one of the wine bottles. "Is that a German Riesling? We have that at—"

Toni cleared her throat. 

"We had that at our wedding," he corrected hurriedly. "Sorry I'm late, hon." He bent to kiss her. She turned her head so it landed right in front of her ear, but then she saw the look Tim exchanged with Heidi, who'd wandered into the kitchen. Like a couple of gossip columnists fishing for tidbits for the neighborhood newsletter. 

Toni pasted on a smile. "I'm just glad you made it in time for the main course." 

"I'll get changed and be right back down."

She got everyone else out of the kitchen by asking them to set the table and having Heidi hand out fresh drinks. Toni was chopping up the parsley with more gusto than was technically needed when Hobson came back downstairs in his dress slacks and a fresh oxford—but no tie.

"How can I help?"

"You could have helped by being here to get the house together and washing all the dishes. I made zero progress on my case today."

"To—Nia." His guilty gulp only irritated her more. "I swear, I didn't mean to, but there was an exploding deep fryer at a restaurant in Greektown at four." 

"You could have at least brought some baklava."

"And then a fight at Lake View High at five. I had to break it up, or three kids were going to end up in the hospital."

He stood there making puppy eyes at her, as if he needed her retroactive permission. "You could have told me."

"I'm sorry. I really am. It all kind of snowballed and—"

She heard footsteps headed toward the kitchen; dropped the knife and yanked Hobson into the stairway alcove. They weren't behind a closed door, but it offered at least the illusion of privacy.

"Stop. Stop making excuses, stop talking about what you do with the paper, just stop."

"You wanted to know where I was."

"I wanted you here—Greg," she finished as the footsteps switched from hardwood to tile, and kissed him full on the lips, eliciting gasps in stereo—one from Hobson, even as his hands came up to grab her arms, and one from their neighbor, who stood at the island, watching them. "Oh, Judy, hi!" Toni shifted out of Hobson's reach and gave him a pat on the rear. "Go mingle with our guests, honey."

"I came to see if I can help," Judy said. "They're all drinking. They're drinking a great deal, and, well, that's not my style. I'll slice the bread."

"You don't have to." Toni tried to wave Judy out with Hobson, who was already halfway to the door. "Please, go enjoy yourself."

"Nonsense. Now where did you put those knives? I put them right here by the refrigerator when I unpacked. Don't you own a serving platter?"

Toni curled her hand around the nearest wine glass, not even sure it was hers. She was about to toss Judy out on her ear, and Hobson, for all his cluelessness, must have read it on her face, because he stepped between them. "Mrs. Healy, I was wondering if you could tell me about a plant someone brought over on moving day. It's some kind of orchid. We had a little go-round about how often it should be watered." His hand on the small of her back, he steered her out of the kitchen and gave Toni a few blessed seconds to collect herself and the food. 

It didn't last long, of course; as with any party, the kitchen was the center of gravity. Toni enlisted those who drifted in to take food out to the dining room. In half an hour they were crowded around the table, passing salad, bread, and lasagna, and emptying another four bottles of wine. Toni wasn't sure how much of the wine came from the supply Hobson had laid in and how many were part of the neighborhood BYOB program.

The lasagna had just made its first trip around the table when Tim stood and made a toast thanking Hobson—Greg. Thanking Greg for saving Mike's life. Toni tried to smile, she really did, and Tim's obvious affection for his partner made it easier, but she couldn't help thinking the guy was dooming Hobson if any of these people were suspects. She tried to read expressions and reactions, but mostly she saw affection and bemusement among the group, especially among those who had lived in the neighborhood the longest. 

She met Hobson's gaze, steady but questioning, always questioning, as they touched wine glasses. What she read there, trust and questions and some degree of the same familiarity she sensed among the neighbors, as though this really was, or could be their home, as if being with her made him feel at home---the fact that she could read that much meant they were in too deep. The lines she'd drawn around herself and her job were blurring into tie-dye.

"Have you worked on the scrapbook, dear?" Judy asked as she helped carry dessert plates to the kitchen. Laura, who was passing Toni at that moment, elbowed her and flashed a quick eyeroll. 

"I've been collecting pictures," Toni said. "I keep meaning to paste them in, but work gets in the way."

"A lot of crime to write about?"

"Oh, yes."

Judy nodded. "I read both papers. Chicago must keep you on your toes!" 

"Right now they're not giving me big stories to cover. Just the beat, you know. Little things. No byline so far."

"You're going to break a case wide open one of these days," Laura said reassuringly. "I can't wait to read it."

"Don't pooh-pooh what you're doing. Little things matter to the people they happen to," Judy announced as they joined the others in the living room. Hobson looked up, startled, from his conversation with Phil, Chad, and Tim. Toni met his questioning look with a shrug as Judy went on. "Bless you for writing about them. If you ever want any help with your scrapbook, I'd be happy to come over and lend a hand. And I can't wait to get your insights on the title for this Friday's book club."

"Oh, good, Nia, you'll love book club," Laura said. "It's at your house this time, isn't it?" she asked Heidi.

"Yup! I'll wash my wineglasses if you guys bring the wine. Oh, and the books, too," she added at Judy's look.

At the end of the night, Tim insisted on an exchange of leftovers with the same fervor someone in a standoff might trade hostages for pizza. Somehow everyone went home with lasagna, salad, and thin slices of apricot torte. Toni and Hobson cleaned up the aftermath in what she thought was companionable silence, retrieving glasses and silverware from odd corners of the living room, then washing them by hand. He let her wash, and still he didn't say anything until their hands brushed when he reached for a plate just as she was putting it in the drying rack. 

"Toni—is it safe to call you that now? I'm really sorry I was late. There was so much to take care of in the paper today, and I tried to get through it as fast as I could, I swear I did, especially since this was all my idea in the first place."

"It's fine," she said, more snappishly than she actually felt. Again. She'd have to stop doing that. "No, I mean it," she added at his look. "It all worked out, and it gave me a chance to get a few more details about some of the history of the neighborhood."

"Anything that'll help you with your case?"

"Maybe." She'd heard a few tidbits of neighborhood history from Bill and Leo that she wanted to run by Jim, including the story of a woodworker who'd cut off his hand in his garage workshop and bled to death, and a comment from Fran about how the Build a Better Beverly committee had been "running hippies and drug addicts out of the most decent neighborhood in Chicago" since the late sixties. Not that Toni would classify Jessica Singer or Mike Yang as either of those things, but at this point she was willing to yank at any likely thread to find a connection among her victims. 

Another minute or two passed, silent except for the slosh of water, the clink of dishes, and an occasional mew from the cat, which was wandering around cleaning up bits of food people had dropped. Finally Hobson said, "Look, Toni, I don't know where we stand right now, but I want to, okay? If you really are mad at me, you can say that. And if you really want to say the rest of it, you can."

She blinked, trying to catch up. "Say the rest of what?"

He twisted the dishtowel in his hands, probably unaware he was doing it. Toni was achingly aware of what the motion did to his forearms, which were exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt. "That the paper makes things too weird and uncomfortable and impossible. That even though you like me, which I think you do, you don't want to deal with the paper."

"I—what are you—" She stopped babbling and drew in a breath, trying to collect her thoughts. "When did I ever lead you to believe I thought that?"

He looked as confused as Winslow had the first time she'd prepped him for a deposition.  
"You were mad at me for being late. You've been mad about that more than once." 

"And that led you to believe I can't handle your ridiculous newspaper? That I can't handle you? How weak-minded do you think I am?"

"I don't think that! But the paper spoils everything. Every relationship I've ever had, as soon as they find out about the paper, they're gone."

"Not Marissa."

"Marissa's different. With you, it's—you're different. In a different way. Different than any other woman I've ever—ever tried to—" He flopped his hand, and the dish towel whapped against the counter. "The paper ruins it all."

"I'm not getting scared away by a newspaper, Hobson, magic or not." Toni had to resist the urge to put a hand on his arm. If she started there, no matter how innocent her intentions, there was no telling when she'd stop. "I'm allowed to get annoyed with you, that's how life works. It doesn't mean I'm going to walk out the door."

"Why not?"

"Because technically it's my door. And even though you are late more often than not and do make me crazy, I want you on this side of that door."

His Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped. "You do?"

"You and your paper." She kept her tone light and added another few wine glasses to the sink. "Honestly, Hobson, if it wasn't for the paper I'm not sure I'd want you around at all. It keeps you from being one of them." She pointed a soapy finger toward the dining room. "They're very nice people, but they're all kind of boring."

A sideways glance showed her the way he closed his eyes in relief. She tried to hide her smile behind a stern façade when she added, "So you and the paper can stay. I'm not so sure about the cat, though."

"Well that's a relief, that you feel that way about the paper, because actually—" He looked past her, over her shoulder at the clock on the oven. "I have to be on Rush Street in about forty minutes. Motorcycle's going to plow through a crowd of partiers if I don't find a way to stop it."

"On a Wednesday night?"

"I think it's fall break. There's some kind of Battle of the Bands thing starting up."

It was just as well. Not that she didn't like the turn the conversation had taken, but she'd had plenty of wine with dinner and if she got any more comfortable with Hobson, her lines would get so blurry they might wash away completely. She handed him the keys to the Honda from the hook on the wall. "Better get going. Take the car. It'll look more logical than you showing up here at some ungodly hour in a cab."

"What'll you say if someone does notice?" he asked.

"I'll tell them we broke our sex toys and needed to replace them right away." He blinked and then blushed, a slow creep of red pushing up his neck. At least she hadn't completely lost her ability to flummox him. She nodded at the collection of empty wine bottles lined up on the kitchen table for recycling. "You sure you're okay to drive?" 

He grabbed a coffee cup from the island and downed what was left in it in a single gulp. Toni refrained from pointing out the lipstick on the rim. "I'm good," he said with a grin that was only slightly dopier than usual. "Don't wait up."

She should have gone to bed after she finished the dishes, but instead she went up to the spare bedroom and tried to burn off some of her leftover energy by paging through her notes and checking the nighttime activity in the neighborhood. It wasn't long before the coffee she'd had with the torte wore off and the wine took over with a vengeance. She brought out her night goggles and took one last look around the neighborhood, but she didn't see anything, and the sensitive listening equipment didn't pick up any voices. 

She couldn't remember whose night it was to sleep in the master. Probably Hobson's, but the bed in the spare room was covered with all the junk, both props and real stuff, she'd stashed away while cleaning for the party. What the hell, she thought as she finished brushing her teeth. She threw open the window in the master bedroom, which was still warm from the oven being on directly below it. If Hobson wanted to claim the big bed when he came home, she could take the couch downstairs. For now, it felt good just to let her head hit the pillow and sink into blessed unconsciousness.

* * * 

When he pulled back into the driveway, Gary was spent from chasing roving gangs of drunk twentysomethings off the sidewalks. There weren't any lights burning in the houses around theirs; he hoped that meant nobody saw him. 

He just barely resisted the urge to strip out of his clothes on the way up to the bedroom and leave them strewn on the stairs. Toni would never forgive him, though it might work with the story she'd cooked up for the neighbors if one of them wandered into the house tomorrow morning. He wouldn't put it past a single one of them, he thought as he brushed his teeth and stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers. 

He flopped into bed, and only when he tried to pull a blanket over himself did he realize all the covers were wrapped around Toni, who was so dead to the world she only let out a snore when he poked her in the side. 

It didn't matter where he slept, just that he got some sleep, so he went to the spare room. But that bed was crowded with Toni's file folders and old copies of the Sun-Times. For about a second, he considered sweeping the whole mess onto the floor, but he could just about imagine the hell he'd catch for scrambling her files. That bed was too uncomfortable to be worth it. 

Back in the master bedroom, Toni was still in the same position, curled into herself and taking up less than half the bed. There wasn't even a hitch in her breath when he slid one of the pillows out from under her head. Slowly, he eased himself down next to her, as close to the other edge of the bed as he could get. 

"Toni?"

Snore.

"So I'm just going to sleep here on the, uh, outside of the sheets, okay? I'll stay on my side of the bed and everything."

Snore. 

"That's what I thought you'd say." He reached for a corner of the blanket, anything to burrow away from the night air, but was asleep before he could pull it out from around the Brigatti burrito on the other side of the bed.

* * *

Toni woke up warm and wanting to kill the alarm going off on the other side of the bed. But when she reached for the sound, she dislodged a heavy arm draped around her torso. There was a groan in her ear, and she realized why she was so warm.

"Hobson?" She held herself still, trying to understand what was going on. His body was outside the blanket, slightly curled around hers.

Shit. 

"Mmm." He reached up and stroked her hair, as if—Toni tried to squirm away, and ended up with his hand flat on her face.

"Hobson!"

They both started up. Tangled in the blankets, Toni had to kick her way free, until she could sit up against the headboard. 

Hobson did the same, scrubbing his hands over his stubbly cheeks. "Hey. What—where—hi," he added with a dopey grin when she fixed him with an exasperated glare. 

At least she hoped that was what her face was doing. With Hobson this close, so close she could feel warmth radiating off him, she wasn't sure she could maintain control. Her pulse felt like a train engine in her throat, and her voice came out as a croak. "Isn't this exactly what we said we weren't going to do?"

"Yeah, sorry." Whatever her face was doing, it wasn't working, because he still had that lopsided grin, those crinkles around his eyes. A look God must have engineered specifically to throw her off balance. Or maybe the devil. "The other bed was a mess when I came home. I tried to ask if it was okay, but you were so out of it, and I just really needed to sleep." He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in about fourteen different directions. "Sorry."

"No harm," Toni lied. Her insides were all twisted up with possibilities denied. "I'll clean the spare room today."

"Okay, but—"

"What?"

He covered her hand with his own and gave it a slight squeeze, old-fashioned as always. "I didn't exactly hate it."

Which was exactly why it couldn't happen again. 

His thumb caressed the web of skin between her thumb and first finger. "Skipped kind of an important step though."

She had to force the next words out between her teeth, past all the pictures he'd just put in her head, past the alarm bells his light touch had set off in her nervous system. "I told you, Hobson, we can't do this."

"I know the rules. But once this case is over, they won't apply. What do we do then?" The look on his face, half-disappointed, half-hopeful, all question, was enough to propel her off the bed and into the shower without another word. She had a case to solve, and he'd been inserted into it by her superiors. It was up to her to keep them on track.

They were both feeling unmoored because neither one of them had spent much time at home in two weeks, she told herself. That was all. This wasn't some kind of promise of mornings like this to come at some later date. Wherever they were headed, it was not for a house in the might-as-well-be suburbs. Neither one of them could fit into a place like this for long.

* * *

"Clean up on aisle three." 

Gary let out a sigh of relief as the manager of County Fair handed a mop to one of the clerks. The kids who'd knocked down an entire display of tomato sauce jars had nearly trampled him in their rush out the door, but he'd steered the other customers away from the mess before they could slip and fall. There'd be no one in a coma on his watch. He was backing away from the ruined display, relieved to have completed a relatively simple mission for the paper, when a deep voice startled him. 

"Hey, Greg!" He turned to find Phil Walker and his two youngest kids. "You get stuck with the shopping today?"

"Oh, yeah, the, uh, the shopping." Gary could have kicked himself for stumbling over something so simple. He had every reason to be in the neighborhood store—rather, Greg did. He backed up to the meat cooler and picked up the nearest thing that came to hand, which turned out to be a five-pound package of ground beef. "Thought I'd grill some burgers tonight." Ignoring Phil's raised eyebrow, he grinned down at the kids. "Hi Mia. Caleb. Still working on that jump shot?" 

Mia giggled; Caleb jumped up and down as if he were on a pogo stick. "Oh, now you've got him started," Phil said with an exaggerated sigh. "You're flying solo tonight, with the book club? Laura's going, too. We're picking up some TV dinners. They think it's a treat."

Gary had a sudden burst of inspiration, possibly triggered by the weight of the meat he was holding. "Why don't you come over? Bring the kids. Seems like a shame for all this to go to waste."

"Really?" The perpetually harried furrow on Phil's brow eased. "That'd be great, but Mark and Shelby's kids were going to spend the night at our place."

Mia stomped a foot; her braids went flying. "I want chicken dinosaurs and smash potatoes!"

"Smash potatoes! Smash potatoes!" Caleb echoed, still jumping.

"Okay, okay, hold on." Gary held up his hands. Hamburger juice dripped on his wrist. "I have an oven, you know. You guys bring your TV dinners, bring Mark's kids—and Mark, if he wants to come," he added. "The more the merrier. We'll have a cookout while the ladies are at book club. Sound good?"

"Sounds great." Phil nodded toward the deli section. "You like potato salad?"

Between them, they bought more food than they'd probably need. Phil gave Gary a ride to the house, and the kids sang the Spongebob Squarepants song the whole way there. "See you in an hour or so," Gary said as he exited the minivan. "And hey, I still have some beer left over from the block party. It'll be chilled by the time you get here." 

Phil slapped a hand on the steering wheel. "Man, you're a lifesaver, and I don't just mean that thing with Mike and the mower."

He didn't know the half of it, Gary thought with a satisfied grin. Arms full of grocery bags, he walked into the kitchen, where he found Toni dicing onions and peppers. 

"You making salsa?"

"For the book club, yeah. What's all that?"

He told her what had happened at the store while she finished the salsa. By the time he explained how he'd ended up buying five pounds of hamburger and two dozen buns, she was shaking her head. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She sidled past him to get to the sink and rinse the cutting board. "You're more perfect for this assignment than Banks and Mulcahy ever dreamed of. Too bad you didn't include any actual suspects in your invitation."

"No luck on the case today, huh?" Gary knew the pace of the investigation was getting to her. Even though the pool of possible victims widened every time they found another weird accident in the ME's files or the archives at the Sun-Times, the roster of suspects was stalled out at anyone who'd lived in the neighborhood for twenty years or longer. 

"I'm hoping I can get something tonight. Maybe one of the older women wonders why her husband acts funny every once in a while." Toni dried her hands, then pulled a sheet of foil off the roll on the island. "Not great odds, but it's a better use of my time than playing on the swing set with the elementary school crowd."

"I think this yard could use a few kids running around it."

"It's got you for starters." She tucked the foil over the bowl of salsa and put it in one of his now-emptied grocery bags, along with some tortilla chips. "Whatever, have fun."

"You're just jealous," he said.

That got a smile out of her. She leaned back against the island; at the refrigerator, Gary did the same, so they were facing each other. It was the closest they'd been, physically, since they'd woken up in the same bed. "You bet your ass I am. The only real advantage to book club is the wine."

Gary rubbed his hands together to give them something to do other than what they seemed to want most, which was to reach out and pull her in even closer and…he cleared his throat. "Tell you what. I'll holler at any of the older guys I see and invite them over tonight, too. Nobody's going to try anything with that many people around."

Toni tilted her head, lips pursed. Her lipstick matched her shirt, a dark red, long-sleeved number that set off her skin and hair. "Nobody's going to let anything slip, either."

"You never know. My money's on Steve. You know how they always say it's the quiet ones. Or maybe his wife. I wouldn't want to cross her." Gary tore his gaze away from Toni long enough to nod at Cat, who was watching them from under the table. "Even my cat won't go into their yard, and he thinks he owns the city."

"Mmm." Toni pointedly ignored Cat, which was her usual reaction. "Still don't know why Steve would want to kill anyone. Why any of these people would. I keep going back to Mike and the mower as a break in the pattern. He hasn't lived here nearly as long as any of our victims. If it was just him, I'd say…" She trailed off, her gaze fixed out the window, as if the answers were written on the driveway. 

"What?"

She blinked, then looked directly at him. "What makes him different?"

"He's gay." That was a big part of the reason Steve had risen to the top of Gary's list of suspects. "Tim said the older people around here don't like them because of that."

"He's also of Chinese descent," Toni pointed out. 

"True. But none of these other victims were gay or Chinese, were they?" He'd seen a lot of the photos, the collection Toni kept threatening to put in Judy's scrapbook to remind them both of the real reason they were there. "The way everyone describes Jessica Singer, she was a perfect all-American. Sweet, kind, a teacher."

"White as the driven snow," Toni added. "But she was also an activist. Spent her weekends demonstrating for causes she believed in. Zahid Durrani was a Pakistani immigrant."

"So they all stood out, but in different ways. Isn't that true of just about anyone?" 

"Maybe." Her voice took on a speculative lift. "If you're trying to keep your neighborhood normal, or if you want to build a better Beverly, maybe you set out to eliminate anyone who doesn't fit your definition of normal." She blinked again, harder this time, and shook herself. "Anyway. It's a thought I've had." She pushed herself upright and grabbed the bag. "I'll try bringing it up at book club, but I don't know if I can steer the conversation that way. The book they're discussing is the most white-bread, plot-holed piece of cotton candy I've ever read. Have fun with your daycare."

"Toni, wait." He grabbed her arm and she looked up at him, startled. Maybe some of his sudden, fluttering sense of the world going off kilter showed in his face. It certainly came out in his question. "If that's what it is, doesn't that make the Walkers a target? And what about you?"

Her closed-lip smile was as wry as it was determined. "You noticed that, huh? Don't worry, Hobson. If this killer comes after me, it means he's not coming after anyone else." She looked down at his hand, curling tighter around her arm. "And he's not coming tonight. Nothing's going to happen at book club, and even if it did, your paper would warn you, right?"

"Damn well better." It took all his resolve to let her go, to watch her walk out the door. He blew out a breath and looked under the kitchen table. "You hear that, buddy?" he asked Cat. "We're going to keep her safe."

* * *

Twice on her walk to Heidi's house, Toni considered turning back. Hanging out with a bunch of kids, maybe coaching another baseball game, sounded a lot more fun than discussing the literary merits of a book about a cat groomer turned amateur detective. Growing up with three brothers and working in law enforcement had made her more comfortable around men than women, especially the kind of women who apparently enjoyed badly plotted, badly written fiction. She was glad she could blame her analysis of the plot holes on her cover job.

But when she reached the house, the front door swung open and the redhead—Paige, Toni remembered--handed her a glass of wine in exchange for the salsa and chips. "You brought the book with you? How cute!" Judging by the slight sway in her step as she led Toni into the front room, she was already several sheets to the wind. If everyone else was in the same condition, it would make it easier to learn about the juicier aspects of neighborhood history.

"It's Judy's," she told Paige. "I'm just returning it."

Paige let out an indelicate snort. "Judy's the only one who takes this seriously. Not even Rose cares about the mysteries, and her husband was a cop. I didn't read it this month. Too busy running Kelsey to soccer practice. Everybody's downstairs, come on."

Heidi's basement had been converted into an entertainment space, complete with a wet bar, three couches, and a bunch of easy chairs. There were already plenty of conversations going on, none of them about the book. Toni was trying to figure out how to direct the conversation to the neighborhood's death by freak accident toll when Laura brought her a paper plate with an assortment of appetizers: cheese puffs, shrimp on tiny plastic skewers, and a dollop of Toni's salsa with chips. "Thanks," Toni said, a little surprised.

"No, thank you." Laura nodded at the second plate she held. "Your salsa's the most interesting thing we've had at one of these things in a long time. Fran and Judy may not approve, but some of us are starving for a little…" She trailed off.

"Spice?" Remembering Hobson's theorizing, she added, "Diversity?"

Laura snorted. "That too. Don't worry, hon. If they get passive-aggressive on you, I've got your back." 

When Judy called the meeting to order, or tried to, Toni settled on one of the couches between Laura and Shelby with her glass of Chardonnay. Most of the women seemed to be ignoring Judy. Shelby and Laura were comparing notes on their kids' schedules.

"You're lucky you don't have kids. I spend my whole day running them around," Shelby told Toni. "Between soccer and choir and band, I barely have time to get to work myself. Jess used to say she was going to wait to have her first until mine were old enough to be her nannies."

At the mention of Jessica Singer, Toni noticed several faces turn their way. "You knew her?" she asked Shelby. "Is it true she was stung to death?"

"Yeah. The police even showed up a few months ago, asking if we thought anyone could have tampered with her EpiPen. Poor Aaron." Curled up in one of the easy chairs, Tami took a swig of her wine. "Judy thinks the place is cursed, especially after what happened to Mike."

"Oh, that was just something I said—" Judy started, but half the women in the room chimed in to agree with the curse theory.

"Is it just that house, though?" Toni asked. "When I told one of the other writers at the paper our new address, he said there was a guy around here whose deck fell on him when he was taking out the trash." She laughed and took a sip of wine, surreptitiously scanning the room for reactions. "Made it sound like I was moving into the danger zone."

"The police didn't find anything in their investigation about Jess, did they, Rose?" Paige asked.

Toni had to hand it to Rose; the woman knew how to keep a straight face. "As far as I know, they declared Jess's death an accident."

"I don't know, it still sounds fishy to me." Heidi moved around the room, refilling wine glasses.

"Yeah, but—killing someone with yellowjackets or a falling deck?" Toni made her face and voice dubious. "Do you really think someone in this neighborhood would do that? Everyone seems so friendly."

"Appearances can be deceiving," Rose said with a raised eyebrow. 

"There's Bill the plumber," Debbie said. "He's got a flair for the dramatic."

"That's because he's an actor, sweetie," Heidi said. "He didn't have any reason to kill Jess. I mean, who did?"

"No one," Judy said firmly. "These books are great fun, but honestly, the thought anyone would do these things in real life is ludicrous."

"You don't think they'd poison your scrapbook stickers or something?" Heidi asked, not unkindly. 

Judy laughed. "That would be a fascinating plot twist. Much like the one in chapter seven. What did you all think when Cleo discovered the drug cache in the library stacks?"

A few of the women gave half-hearted answers, but talk turned right back to real cases. "Come on, Nia, you're our roving reporter. What's the most interesting murder you've ever written about?" Heidi asked.

Toni considered for a moment. She could strengthen her cover or blow it with whatever she said next; more important, she could use this as a chance to draw attention—maybe the killer's attention, or at least his wife's, to herself. "How about the best one I never wrote about?" She'd never written about any murder, except in official police reports, but she remembered the details of quite a few. 

Changing all the names and locations, she told them about a mob informant, one she'd helped transfer from Philly to Boise. He'd insisted on bringing his girlfriend into WITSEC, but she hadn't wanted to come. Once she'd told Toni how he'd treated her, Toni hadn't blamed her one bit. The Marshals faked his death and set him up with an apartment and a job, but a month later he went AWOL and tracked down his ex. The woman shot him when he showed up at her new place, then called Toni because she didn't know what else to do. Given that he'd violated the terms of his protection order, and was supposed to be dead anyway, no one had been interested in pressing charges against the woman.

"How did you know about it, if it never was reported?" Laura asked, eyes wide.

"I had a friend who was a Marshal. She swore me to secrecy," Toni confided, playing up how much the wine was going to her head. She didn't let herself look at Rose.

"What did they do with the body?" Heidi asked. 

"Couple days later, a John Doe shows up at the morgue in Norfolk, Nebraska," Toni told them. "They figure it's a transient and bury Jimmy the Moose in a pauper's grave on the prairie." 

"Wow," Laura breathed.

"Right?" Shelby stood. "I need more wine." 

"You're a regular Nancy Drew, aren't you?" Laura asked Toni.

"She was my inspiration," Toni said. Which was true; she'd torn through her mother's collection almost as soon as she'd learned to read.

"We should read one of those for next time," Heidi said. "Remember the one with the secret staircase?"

"Ladies, I'm not sure that's the best use of our time," Judy protested. 

"But isn't this supposed to be fun?" Debbie wanted to know. "And easy. I could get through a kids' book during Destiny's swimming lesson."

"At least that way you'd finish something," Heidi teased.

"Hey, I always read the endings to find out whodunit. It's the middles I usually skip."

"Oh, that's just like you, going right for the climax."

Debbie's smile became downright wicked. "That's what she said."

"If we're going to do a kids' book, it really should be Trixie Belden," Paige said. "She was the best, and she got to ride horses."

Others chimed in with their own favorites. Toni sat back and let the conversation wash over her, glad to be out of the spotlight. Why had she walked into it in the first place? But maybe she hadn't been a total disaster; Rose winked at her over her wine glass, and Heidi didn't kick her out of the kitchen when she offered to help clean up. Which was when she discovered the second party, the one that happened after Judy, Rose, and Debbie went home. Shelby and Heidi and Laura brought out another bottle of wine. "If Chad hasn't brought the kids home yet," Heidi said, "we might as well enjoy ourselves."

It felt weird to be part of this female conclave, but it was kind of nice, too. Toni hadn't been part of a conversation with this many women since the last time she'd been home for Christmas and spent a week in the kitchen with her sisters-in-law, aunts, and cousins. 

"Having a good time?" Shelby asked as she refilled her glass.

Toni's surprised herself by answering, "Yeah, I am."

* * *

Gary was setting up the grill when Steve came out with a bag of trash. "Hey, we're having some burgers tonight," he called. "You want to come over?"

Steve scrunched up his face, either considering the offer or scowling at it, but before he could answer the four Walker kids came running up into the backyard. "No thanks," he said decisively. He was inside before Phil made it up the driveway

Mark and his two kids showed up not too long after, and by the time the burgers—and the TV dinners—were ready, Gary had waved Mike and Tim from next door, Wayne from across the street, and Bill from across the back fence into the party. It was a little like working at McGinty's, he thought, but a lot more relaxed. Here, he didn't have to worry about revenues or who he'd have to call a cab for later. 

The kids spilled all over the playset and started an impromptu soccer game that ran from the garage to the street, across both driveways. Cat was kept busy being petted by the youngest ones, most of whom weren't even in preschool yet. At one point, Gary started after Caleb, who was rushing for the ornamental pond, but Cat streaked ahead of him and wrapped itself around the little boy's ankle. "Kitty!" Caleb exclaimed. When Cat headed back into Gary's yard, Caleb ran right along behind him. 

Later, when everyone had eaten and they'd pulled chairs outside so they could finish off the beer and keep an eye on the kids, Mike leaned over and nudged Gary's elbow. "Get a load of the new goalie." 

Sure enough, Cat was perched between the two cones Mark's kids had brought to mark the goal. When the swarm of kids closed in on the goal, one of the girls dove in front of the ball and heaved it down the driveway, then stayed on the ground to pet Cat.

"Your cat is good with kids," Phil said. "So are you."

"Uh, thanks." Gary was never sure what to say to that. He did like kids, but they weren't all that different from other people.

"You guys planning to have any?" Tim wanted to know.

"Who? Oh, Nia. Um, yeah, we want kids." He wasn't one hundred percent sure of that, but admitting it would probably qualify as blowing his cover. "We're waiting for the right time."

"You got this place now. Seems like the right time if I ever heard of it." Tim grinned at him. "Of course your kids will have a couple of honorary uncles."

"That'd be great," Gary said honestly, trying to ignore a stab of guilt. He wasn't sure even saving his partner's life could make up for the lie he and Toni were perpetrating. It didn't seem like a fair move, especially against the Niceness Ninjas. 

He sipped at his beer, pretending to watch the kids while he was really trying to gauge the men sitting with him. Were any of them capable of murder? If Toni was right about the killings going back to the seventies, Bill and Wayne were the only ones to worry about. Bill had been a little pushy about being in their house, sure, and he would have had the easiest access to Mike's mower. But his smile came easily, like now, when he was laughing at Mike's comment about the White Sox going to the playoffs again being like Charlie Brown running at Lucy's football. The guy didn't seem put off by any of the neighbors; from what Gary had seen, he was always thrilled to be included in the group.

Wayne was harder to read. He'd been a carpenter, which meant he knew how to rig a deck to collapse, or a mirror to fall. He also hadn't spoken to Mike or Tim all evening. Still, he was far from the neighborhood crank; he'd pushed some of the younger kids on the swing set for a while earlier and seemed content to sit next to Phil now, griping about his wife's obsessions with scrapbooks and mystery novels.

No, Gary's money was still on Steve, who he supposed was somewhere behind the curtained windows next door. Or maybe Leo; as a firefighter, he would have learned all kinds of ways to make accidents happen on purpose. Of course, the same could be said about Gary himself.

All the speculation he was doing, with no one to talk to about it, set him on edge. When he went inside to get the ice cream bars Mark had brought, he grabbed the paper from the top of the fridge and checked through it, just to make sure. 

"Just looking at the markets," he said when Mark came in and caught him at it. 

"You've got to be kidding me. It's Friday night. You can't do anything about them until Monday." Mark picked up one box of ice cream bars and held the other one out to Gary. "Let's get these kids sugared up."

The kids played for another hour or so. By the time twilight deepened into darkness, they were wandering away from the soccer game. Amy curled up in Mark's lap; Caleb dragged a stick around the porch and Cat followed, pawing at it. Gary couldn't stop himself looking at his watch, then down the driveway to see if Toni was coming.

"Give it up, Snow. They'll be there all night," Phil told him. "Most book club nights I put the kids to bed and fall asleep watching ESPN."

Gary nodded. The gathering was about to break up, but he hadn't made any progress in sussing out suspects. "I still have a case of beer left from last Saturday," he said. "Anybody up for some poker?"

That was all it took to move the party inside. Mike ran next door and came back with The Little Mermaid on VHS—he claimed he kept it around for when his nieces visited--along with a couple decks of cards and a set of poker chips. Mark and Phil got the kids set up in the living room, piled like puppies on the sofa and the rug with a couple bowls of popcorn. The dining room became a mini casino as the men played a few rounds of Texas hold 'em. 

He tried asking about neighborhood history, tried to work the conversation around to accidents and other strange deaths. The only new information he got was a story from Mark about a guy who'd lived next door to their house nearly ten years ago. "About a year or so after we moved in, he was working in his garage one night. Had one of those disc saws—"

"Circular saw," Wayne corrected.

"Yeah. Cut off his own hand somehow. Bled out before he could get help. His wife found him the next morning. Said it was like something out of a horror movie."

Somewhere behind his neatly trimmed mustache and beard, Mark made a face. "Crappy way to go out."

Gary was trying to imagine it. After four years with the paper, he could see the accident happening, but not quite like they were describing. "Didn't he go for help? For that matter, how'd he get all the way through the bone before he shut off the saw?"

"Good question," Tim said.

"That guy was always a little off." Wayne tossed a couple of chips into the pot. 

"Off how?" Gary asked. 

"I hate to speak ill of the dead," Phil said, "But it's been ten years. Larry was from Indiana. Southern Indiana."

"And?" Gary was from Indiana, too, but he wasn't sure he should point that out.

"Let's just say he added redneck charm to the neighborhood," Mark said.

"I wouldn't call it charm," Phil said. "He told me his daddy was dragon in the Klan."

Gary would have asked for more details, but Matthew and Jocelyn, the oldest of the kids, walked into the dining room. "We're bored," Matthew said.

"Weren't you Ariel for Halloween?" Phil asked Jocelyn.

"That was like two years ago." She rolled her eyes. "We want to play poker." Twenty minutes later, she won her first round. Gary wasn't sure if teaching a ten-year-old to bluff was the kind of surveillance activity CPD would sanction, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

By the time Toni came home, the extra beer was gone and the younger kids had all fallen asleep. Their dads roused them for the walk home, and Mike and Tim helped Gary clean up. He waved them off the dishes, though. "I'll get those in the morning."

"Don't let him dump it all on you," Tim warned Toni.

"No danger of that," she assured him. She'd been quiet, watching everyone pack up, but she turned on Gary the moment Mike and Time left. "So what did you find out?"

He told her about Larry and the circular saw while he picked popcorn kernels out of the living room rug. "It is another weird accident, but I'm not sure how you'd get a guy to cut off his own hand and not go for help. How about you?"

"Couple things." Toni was standing next to the couch. She scanned the front room and the dining room, as though the killer might have left a clue hanging in the atmosphere.

"What is it?"

She sighed, her shoulders drooping. "I had a good time tonight. Maybe too good. These women can put away the wine. But I had remind myself every five minutes that it wasn't real."

"Well, yeah, it is real." The night had felt like the life he'd always imagined for himself. "Sure, we're not who we say we are, but the rest of it, the community and the stuff we all do together, that's real. This is how a whole lot of people live."

"It isn't how we live, and it isn't why we're here." She stood up straighter, crossing her arms over her chest. "The reality isn't the neighborhood kids camped out in our living room because you're their favorite non-dad Dad. The reality is that someone in this group of people is a killer. You may have been playing poker with a murderer tonight while those kids slept in the next room. We let down our guard."

Fighting back a shudder, Gary clenched the popcorn he'd retrieved in his fist. But she'd said "we." "Is this about me or you?"

To his surprise, she didn't snap at him. Instead, she tilted her head to the side, considering. Maybe the wine had mellowed her mood. "That's a very good question. Either way, we have to do better. We have to figure out who this guy is and leave these people to their lives."

As important as solving the case was, there was something more he wanted to say. "You're right in that I don't like lying to them." He gathered up the rest of the bowls and took them to the kitchen.

Toni followed. "There's a 'but' in there somewhere."

"But…" He thought about denying its existence, but that would be a lie, too. And Marissa had told him to go for it. "We can't ignore the fact that this setup, you and me and this neighborhood, feels right. Or at least it feels like a version of right to me. I'm halfway through my thirties and I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get here."

"Are you sure you want to?"

If it was with her, he did. But he wasn't sure he should say that. What if this life, or their version of it, wasn't what she wanted? Would he cut off any chance he had with her? "I don't know. I've never known. There are so many possibilities, but I feel like maybe it's time to pick one and go with it."

"That's what growing up is." Toni watched him from the end of the island as he stacked dishes in the sink. "Making choices."

And narrowing his world. "Can't it be fun, though? Tonight was fun." Maybe it was the slight buzz he had from finishing off a few beers that made him brave; maybe it was her shirt collar, slightly askew and begging to be straightened. He stepped closer and tucked it back in place. "And if this was our life, we could keep the fun going."

Toni bit her lip, but she didn't pull away. "We agreed not to do this here."

"Yeah." He was too tired, too at the end of his rope with all the pretending and boundaries, to hide his regret about that agreement. "I guess we did."

She reached up and circled her fingers over his, which were lingering on her collar. Gary wasn't sure if he imagined the slight squeeze she gave his hand when she pulled his away; she let go and headed upstairs almost before he could register it. 

He allowed himself a moment, a droop of his shoulders, a whispered, "Damn," before he locked the back door and followed her. She was headed into the spare room.

"It's your night for the big bed," he said. 

"Take it. I want to write down some notes before I forget."

"Brigatti?"

She turned back. Her expression was cloudy. Not hostile, not angry, not regretful. Preoccupied, and, he guessed, not by him. It drove whatever he'd been thinking he could say right out of his head.

"Tomorrow's Saturday. There are a couple of big college football games and the White Sox and Cubs are both playing."

"You want me to buy you some pompoms?"

The little punch in her voice when she said stuff like that make him want her more. He'd never been able to figure out why. "It's going to be busy at McGinty's. It's really not fair, all the time I've left Marissa to run the place lately. I should help her out if the paper lets me."

"Sure, that's fine. I have a meeting with my team up at North Station at two. We can head up that way together."

"Okay, thanks."

They stood at opposite ends of the hall, staring, neither able to find the words for whatever the hell was going on. The space between them was charged with an electricity that made the hairs on Gary's arms stand on end, but he was pretty sure if he acted on it he'd end up handcuffed in the bathtub to keep him out of her hair, no matter how much wine she'd had. So he said good-night. She nodded, and they went their separate, frustrated ways.

* * *

"Between the background we've picked up at social functions and the potential murders we've weeded out of the files, we have a list of sixteen suspicious deaths spanning forty-eight years." Toni handed copies of her lists of victims and suspects around the conference table. Mulcahy had requested the meeting. Since she wanted Armstrong and Winslow's eyes and ideas on the case, it made sense to have it at North Station. She was secretly relieved about that. Just walking through the bullpen had made her feel like a baseball player returning home after a hitless streak of away games. All that was missing was her work wardrobe. 

And Hobson. She'd made it clear, or thought she had, that his input would have been welcome, but his paper had other ideas. When she'd dropped him off at McGinty's before lunch, he'd mentioned a couple of things he had to take care of, one involving a medical emergency on the Brown Line, and another at the zoo. He'd tried to go into details, but she'd held up a hand. "The last thing I need is to stumble over excuses for you because I'm imagining you delivering a baby or taming a lion."

"But it's not—"

"I don't want to know. Just keep yourself out of the hospital, okay? Go." 

Before he'd gotten out of the car—which she had driven, Mulcahy and his backward ideas about marriage be damned—he'd leaned over, as if he were about to kiss her good-bye. Then, at whatever he'd seen in her reaction, he'd settled for patting her arm. She'd shaken her head at him, but he'd guaranteed she'd spend the meeting and the hours of prep before it wondering what he was up to, and not only at the zoo.

"These may not all be related, and they may not be the only deaths we should investigate," she told the team. "But they fit our pattern, in that each of them could have been deliberately staged. If the deaths really do go back as far as 1962, our list of possible suspects is down to the handful of people who've lived in the neighborhood that long. Leo Zalazney, Steve and Fran Brennan, Wayne and Judy Healy, Bill Warner, Jim and Rose Byrne, and Heidi Preston, nee O'Connor, in the event she's continuing something started by her parents, Jack and Susan."

"You can take Jim and Rose right off this list," Mulcahy said. "We all know it wasn't them."

"I tend to agree," Toni acknowledged. "However, I don't want to let my bias in favor of an ex-cop cloud my thinking. The case is already based on quite a few assumptions."

She didn't miss the look Mulcahy exchanged with Banks, but she wasn't sure if his pursed lips and raised brow signified approval or impatience. 

"What about your neighbor's accident with the lawn mower?" Paul asked. "That's not on this list."

"No conclusive evidence." Winslow produced a lab report and handed it around. "Forensics couldn't find evidence of tampering on the mower or fingerprints on the blade. For all we know, Hobson overreacted and caused the problem in the first place. Where's the old ball and chain today, Brigatti?"

"Working at his bar." Not performing an emergency tracheotomy on an L train. Not wrestling a bear. Please. Not anything that would put him on Winslow's radar. "He needed to catch up on a few things."

"You been distracting him?"

"The case has. He's been a big help."

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure he has. He's always struck me as quite the team player. Have you—"

Paul cleared his throat with a sharp cough, saving Toni the work of choking Winslow for whatever he'd been about to say. "If Yang's near miss was a murder attempt, we know Hobson isn't the one who loosened the mower blade," Paul said firmly, though Toni could have sworn she saw his jaw twitch at Hobson's name. "Toni, you got any motives on our suspects?"

Toni hid her relief by focusing on the list of strange deaths. She ran her finger from name to name, wishing the invisible web connecting them would consolidate itself into a simple straight line. "The only thing we've come up with so far is a connection among some of the victims. A lot of them seem to have stood out from the norm in some way: race, lifestyle, behavior. Maybe even beliefs. Melinda Sheffield, the one who fell asleep and drowned in her bathtub, was described as a New Age pagan, and our thirty-year-old stroke victim may have been having an affair with a married woman."

"So none of them stood out in exactly the same way?" Banks asked.

"Not that we can discern, sir," Toni admitted.

"Does this tendency of our victims to be different point us toward any of our suspects in particular?" Mulcahy asked.

Toni looked at the list again. She could come up with reasons to eliminate any one of them, but as soon as she did, she came up with reasons they should stay right where they were. Yes, Leo Zelazny was an ex-firefighter, and therefore more likely to have been called to the scene of some of those deaths than to have caused them, but his experiences could have taught him exactly how to best disguise murders as accidents. Heidi seemed to be on great terms with everyone, including Mike and Tim, but if she'd been raised by a killer she might be putting on an act to carry on her parent's work. 

"Not yet," she told Mulcahy. 

He tossed his pen onto the table with a sideways flick of his hand. "This is a problem, Detective. You've been there for two weeks, and our list of suspects isn't getting any shorter."

"At least now we have a list," Banks pointed out. "Given how old and obscure some of these cases are, it's taken remarkable detective work just to compile it—and to discover how far back this killer's work may go."

Toni shot him a faint smile in thanks, though his praise didn't change the fact that all her work had only complicated the case and added to everyone's workload. 

"Our budget isn't getting any bigger, either," Mulcahy said. "If I'm going to justify continuing your assignment, Detective, I need results, sooner rather than later."

"I understand." Toni drew in a deep breath. "Maybe we need to change our approach." 

If Banks and Mulcahy knew what she was about to say, they didn't show it. Toni was glad she'd never played poker with either one of them. Winslow's face was open. If he was waiting for anything, it was the chance to make another snarky comment about Hobson. Paul, though… Paul caught on about the same time they locked eyes across the table. Maybe it was because he was as used to dealing with the repercussions of being visibly different as she was. "I don't know if this is a good idea," he said.

It was the only one she had. "This case needs a jump start," she said. "If this killer really is looking for a target among neighbors who are different, then let's give him one. Me."

* * *

He should have brought a book. 

Gary had been hiding in a stall of the men's restroom in the Penguin House since a little before five, when the zoo had closed. It was now close to six-thirty, and he'd read everything of interest in the paper at least twice. He needed something to take his mind off the smell, but all he had were the zoo map and the article he was there to prevent.

"Local Woman Dies in Penguin Pool"

"Patricia Adams, 32, was found drowned in the Blum-Kovler Penguin-Seabird House at the Lincoln Park Zoo Saturday night. A night watchman found the woman's body at 8:05 P. M. He stated that he had not seen her during his previous check of the exhibit ninety minutes earlier. The zoo's spokeswoman declined to speculate as to why Adams had been in the exhibit, but Richard Davis, a friend of the deceased, described her as a passionate lover of animals. 'She probably wanted to swim with the penguins,' he said."

Of course, there was nothing in the article to tell Gary how she'd managed to get into the zoo, let alone the penguin exhibit, after hours. He'd figured it would be easier to find a hiding place before the zoo closed than to get in afterward, so after he'd saved a little boy from choking on a hot dog on the L, he'd come to Lincoln Park and camped out in the bathroom. The timing had left Marissa alone during the dinner rush, but he'd promised he'd take the night shift. 

Just as soon as he saved Patricia Adams from herself.

The main door to the restroom creaked open. Gary pulled his feet up as high as he could, bracing them against the door, and held his breath while heavy footsteps—he assumed they were the watchman's—echoed off the tiled walls. They stopped at the row of urinals and sinks, then turned around. The lights clicked off, the door closed, and Gary was left alone in the dark.

If the watchman wasn't any more thorough than that, he was fairly sure Patricia Adams had made it into the zoo after hours the same way he had. Which meant the easiest way to save her was to get her out of the building before she ever made it to the penguins' pool. He unfolded himself from his uncomfortable seat, navigated the almost pitch black restroom, and opened the door slowly. 

The watchman was gone. Gary crossed the hall to the women's room and walked in, flipping on the lights. "Patricia? Patricia Adams, are you in here?"

No answer. He checked all the stalls, pushing each door fully open, but found no one. There was, however, a weird fishy smell he hadn't noticed in the men's room. As if someone who'd wanted to bond with the penguins had waited in here with treats for them.

He made his way through the darkened building to the penguin exhibit. On a rocky outcrop a little above his sightline, penguins waddled, hopped, and dove into a deep pool that was behind a glass wall, so visitors could watch them swim underwater. As Gary watched, all the penguins in the exhibit, dozens of them, turned toward one corner of the exhibit and started making their way there.

A woman emerged from a tiny doorway in the painted backdrop behind the rocks. She wasn't wearing a zoo uniform.

"Ms. Adams! Patricia! You have to get out of there!" Gary tried jumping up and down and waving his arms, but the woman didn't seem able to hear him through the glass wall. She was fixated on the penguins surrounding her; she held up a bucket and took out a fish. 

Intending to get the guard, Gary started around the exhibit, but as he rounded the corner he saw a door cracked open. It led to a small, cramped hallway that rose a few feet, and then to another door, this one propped open with a doorstop. Gary pushed through it and found himself a few yards away from Patricia Adams, who crouched among a flock of hungry penguins.

"Patricia!" he called. "I don't know what you're doing but you have to leave."

She started, stood up, and turned to face him, a rock hopper penguin in her arms. The bird flapped its wings in her face and she stumbled back, slipping on the wet rocks and scattering penguins around her. Gary lunged for her and caught her arm just before she would have fallen in the pool.

"What are you—you know what, never mind. I don't want to know." Gary hauled her away from the edge of the rocks, back toward the door. "Just get out of here before you get caught or drown. And put that penguin down!" 

"I just wanted to pet one! I've always wanted to pet one." She ran a hand over the rock hopper's head, but it jabbed its beak into her arm. "Ow! Ungrateful wretch!"

In one swift movement, she thrust the penguin at Gary and leaped over the pack that circled their feet. She was out the side door before Gary could get his bearings. 

"At least she's not going to drown," Gary told the penguin. It let out a squawk and jabbed its beak at his shoulder. "Okay, okay, here, get down." But when he opened his arms, the penguin flapped its wings in his face. Like Patricia Adams, Gary stumbled backward. The heel of his tennis shoe caught on something slippery—a fish—and he went down on the wet rocks. He heard shouting beyond the door, but before he could make out who it was or what they were saying, a sea of wings, beaks, and webbed feet crashed over him.

* * *

When her phone rang, Toni was in her townhouse. She'd come to ground herself in her own home, deprived as it was of her dishes and towels and some of the little things that had made it hers. Like Hobson had said the night before, she was getting confused about what was real, and she'd hoped being here, being home, would help her find her way to some solid ground, even if she only sat on her couch and sipped a glass of water. Solid ground was something she needed badly, in terms of both her case and her relationship with Hobson. 

Speaking of which, it was probably him calling. She was due to meet him at McGinty's so they could go back to Beverly together. She flipped open the phone. "Brigatti."

Sure enough, Hobson's voice came over the line, though not with the question she'd expected. "Can you, uh, come bail me out?"

"You were arrested?" If he was down at holding, she would never hear the end of it.

"No, no, it's not that. I'm at the Lincoln Park Zoo."

"The zoo has a jail?"

"Kind of." 

"What are you doing in the zoo's kind-of jail? Please tell me you didn't actually wrestle a bear."

"Not a bear, no. It was--it's a long story. Toni, please. They won't let me go unless someone in authority can vouch for me. In person."

"Fine. But this is only because my case will be blown if I leave you there."

It was actually, if she was honest with herself, because she was dying to know what kind of mess he'd wound up in this time. Twenty minutes later she stood in the reception area of the zoo's main office, staring down in disbelief at Hobson, who sat slumped in a plastic chair. His oxford was half unbuttoned. His jeans had a rip in one knee. His wet hair stood up in stiff spikes, and there were darkening red spots on his face. He smelled like he'd taken a ride in the cargo hold of a fishing boat.

A man in khakis and a dark green polo with the zoo's logo introduced himself as Charlie Johnson. "I'm one of the keepers here at the zoo. One of our security guards called me in because he found your—" He paused, but Toni didn't have any idea how to fill in that blank. "He found Mr. Hobson in the penguin exhibit."

"He was with the penguins?"

"More like under them," Hobson muttered. Her night was definitely looking more interesting. 

After Johnson looked over Toni's CPD star and her I.D., he said, "Hobson claims to have been helping a woman who fell into the penguin pool, but the only woman we found was outside the exhibit. She's one of our repeat offenders. I was going to call the police on them both until Mr. Hobson said he knew you."

"I didn't say she fell into the pool," Hobson protested. "I said she was going to fall in. I caught her before she could."

"Of course you did," Toni said, trying to keep her tone even. "That doesn't explain why you're such a mess. Did the woman fight back when you grabbed her?"

He sighed and covered his face with a hand.

"Hobson. Were you attacked by penguins?"

"Not exactly," he mumbled without looking up.

"They're naturally curious," Johnson said. "Especially when someone goes into their habitat. They were exploring Mr. Hobson because he smelled like fish."

"Because I fell on a fish that woman brought with her! Said she wanted to bond with them." Hobson stood, a little wobbly. "Look, Detective Brigatti can tell you I wasn't here to kidnap your penguins. You let Patricia Adams go. It's my turn."

"We released Ms. Adams into the care of her psychiatrist. This isn't the first time we've had to chase her out of the zoo after hours, but it is the first time she's gotten so close to an exhibit."

"I'm telling you, she was in the exhibit." Hobson's protest would have been more effective if it hadn't been delivered with a flap of his wet sleeve. 

Johnson turned to Toni. "He won't give me a reasonable explanation as to why he was there. But I have animals to take care of. As long as you can promise me he won't be back, we won't press charges."

"You wouldn't press charges anyway," Toni guessed. "There are obviously security issues here, if people can run around after hours and have close encounters with—" She had to stop for a split second, hoping neither of them would guess she was swallowing a sudden bark of laughter. "—with your penguins." 

She managed to hold her laughter back until they were in the car. Just before she made the turn out of the parking lot and onto Cannon Drive, she looked over at Hobson, who was scrunched down in the seat and pouting, and burst out laughing.

"You think this is funny?" he groused. "A crazy woman threw a rock hopper at me. Those things have strong beaks, did you know that? I'm down on the ground and they're all over me, poking with their beaks and flapping their wings at me like I'm some kind of penguin punching bag."

Toni threw the car into park. No way did she trust herself to drive, not when she could hardly breathe.

"I got hurt!"

"Poor baby."

"I could've been killed!"

"I can just imagine the headline," she choked out. "'Local Man Dies, Pecked to Death by Penguins.'"

He waited for her to get her laughter under control. "You done?"

She gulped back another spray of laughter. Even though it was funny, her reaction probably had as much to do with a release of a tiny bit of the tension that had built up over the past couple weeks as it did with the comedic value of Hobson's latest mishap. "Oh, sure. Sure. Don't know how I'm going to explain those bruises to the neighbors, but we'll think of something." 

A few blocks later, he sighed. "Okay, even I can't come up with something for this. But in my defense, I did stay out of the hospital, just like you asked. It wasn't a bad day until I slipped on the fish."

Toni snorted. "I can see where that would turn your mood around." Since he seemed to have found a bit of perspective, she risked a teasing tone. "But I have to say, days like this, I can understand why Winslow finds you such a rich source of amusement."

"Don't you dare tell him."

"I have to tell someone. Maybe Tim or Mike."

"No! You can tell Marissa," he allowed when they pulled into the alley behind McGinty's. "She'll find out one way or another." He held the back door open for her, then steered her through the busy kitchen, determinedly avoiding eye contact with the staff. He nodded toward the door out to the bar. "I'm going upstairs to change. Tell Marissa so you two can get it out of your system before I get out there."

He was pushing the office door open when she called after him, "Hey, Hobson." Every head in the kitchen turned to stare at them, but Toni couldn't hide her grin. Bailing him out of zoo jail was the most fun she'd had in weeks. "You're welcome." 

He narrowed his eyes and looked about to say something that certainly wouldn't have been, "Thank you." Before he could, Toni swung around and marched out to find Marissa.

Marissa's reaction wasn't quite as surprised as she'd expected. "Do penguin attacks happen a lot with Hobson and his paper?" she asked, perched on a stool at the end of the bar closest to the kitchen. 

"Pretty sure this is a first." Marissa closed the book in front of her, which Toni assumed was something she'd been studying for one of her classes, and made a quick motion with her hand in the bartender's general direction. "Gary runs into things that have never happened to him, or to anyone, every day. I guess that's the one constant with him."

The bartender produced two wine glasses and a bottle of Chardonnay, then left to fill more orders.

"How often do you end up bailing him out?" Toni asked.

Marissa laughed. "More often than he'd like. It's not so bad, though. I'd rather know about the paper than not. But I'm glad you could help him out today, and not just for Gary's sake. It's been a while since I've been able to talk to anyone else about the paper."

"I know what you mean." Toni took a sip of her wine. "It's not like I can explain this to anyone I work with." They were still comparing notes when Hobson came downstairs, his hair combed, his shirt clean. Most of the marks on his face were already fading, but a couple had purpled up. Hobson scowled when Toni described the damage for Marissa, but when she was finished he had one of the waiters bring out steak dinners for all three of them.

While Hobson and Marissa conferred about their business, Toni ate, comfortable amid the noise and bustle of the Saturday night crowd. She'd never been a big bar goer, except for a handful of months in college when she'd dated a guy with more money than common sense. Hobson's place felt nothing like the kind of clubs Sawyer had frequented. It was more homey and comfortable, and when the cat came and wound its way, purring, among the legs of her bar stool and Marissa's, she didn't mind nearly as much as she usually did.

By eleven-thirty, the crowd had thinned, Marissa had gone home, and the kitchen was shutting down. Toni brought some of the case files in from the car and moved to a booth, where she could spread things out and make more notes about who needed deep background checks. Mulcahy's detectives had run cursory checks on most of the neighbors when they'd first looked into Jessica Singer's death. They'd turned up nothing but traffic tickets and library fines. Maybe old work records would turn up clues; maybe if she could elicit more gossip she'd find the single thread tying all the deaths together.

And maybe she'd been right this afternoon, and the best way to catch the killer was to draw him out into the open by being everything she'd been trying to hide for the past few weeks.

"What's wrong?" Hobson slid into the seat across from hers. 

She tossed her pen onto the table. Reached for the wine glass, but it was empty. "This case is all wrong. I thought I had a way to find our murderer, but Banks vetoed it." And then, with his mottled face reminding her that he hadn't hidden his embarrassing fiasco at the zoo, she told him everything that had happened at the meeting, up to and including her captain's adamant instructions. "He wants us to work even harder to blend in," she finished. "He even accused me of going behind his back by making Puerto Rican food for the block party. Here we have the perfect opportunity to tempt this guy to try something, and I can't use it."

"It's hardly perfect." Hobson's brows drew together, and the blotchy patch that must have been a lingering mark from a penguin wing, or maybe a foot, contorted into a shape that reminded her of the map of South America. "I'm not sure I like you putting yourself on the line like that any more than your captain does. This person is sneaky, and he's found new ways to kill every time. Now I'm going to worry every time you start the car or open the refrigerator."

"Oh, come on, Hobson, you want this thing over as much as I do. Besides, your paper would let you know if anything were about to happen." She frowned. "Which might be a problem. Our killer could get scared off if you keep foiling his plans."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to keep right on foiling them." He covered her hand with his own, and her heart sped up. What was wrong with her? It was one touch, nothing more. "Nobody's dying on my watch. Especially not you."

The intensity in his voice, the way green glints shone out of his eyes even in the dim light of the bar, did nothing to slow her racing pulse. She slipped her hand free. "I'll do my best not to die. You ready to go home?" 

He held her with his gaze for another second or two, then nodded. "I think A.J. can handle the rest of the night." He glanced down at his shirt, one of the same blue oxfords the McGinty's staff always wore. It had a few wet spots on it. "I should probably clean up again. Be right back."

He headed back for the office. The cat leapt up onto the bench seat next to Toni and sat there, staring and purring, as if it could read her mind. Toni wasn't sure she could trust what she was thinking about her bosses' rules and where they applied. She certainly did not trust what she was feeling, not when her heart hadn't slowed one bit once Hobson was out of sight. 

But not out of mind. "You think so?" she asked the cat, then hid her embarrassment at talking to it by tidying her papers and files into one neat stack. She waited another full minute, she was sure, before she went up to the loft. 

She took the stairs quietly, slowly, because she wanted to sneak up on him, and because she knew full well that what she really wanted was maybe not the best idea she'd had all day. At the end of a day when she'd suggested offering herself up as bait for a serial killer, that was saying something.

The loft door let out a faint click when she opened it, but he must not have heard. She caught him mid-change. He stood at the foot of his bed, arms in the air as he pulled off his t-shirt. Toni stopped halfway across the loft, one hand on the back of the sofa to steady herself. "Don't mind me," she said when he caught sight of her and froze, his arms tangled in the sleeves. "I'm enjoying the view." 

He blinked at her once, slow and steady. "You came up here for the view?"

The splotches of color on his torso gave her a ready retort. "And to check on your condition. You didn't tell me the penguins got you there."

"They got me everywhere." He turned his back to her before struggling the rest of the way out of the shirt. Toni figured it was more to hide the fact that he was blushing at her attention than to protect his modesty. "Nothing time won't fix."

How many times had he told himself that, thanks to his newspaper? As loudly as the dutiful cop inside her screamed that this was not just a bad idea, but a terrible, potentially catastrophic one, she walked up to him and touched a purpling spot just under his shoulder blade. It was a light touch, not even a poke, and he had to know she was there, but he jumped anyway. Toni could see goosebumps spread out from the spot. "They really did get you everywhere."

"That one wasn't the penguins. I landed on my back. On a rock."

"I'm sorry, Hobson. I really am." She put her palm flat on the spot, and kept it there when he shivered. "You know I wasn't laughing at you, right? Penguins are just inherently funny."

"Oh, yeah, they're a riot." He turned around, leaving them inches apart. "Especially when they're on the attack."

Toni's mouth went dry. She had to swallow before she could say, "Never thought of penguins as a lethal weapon."

"And I never thought—" Maybe his mouth was dry, too, because he gulped. Brought his hands up to her shoulders, sending a tingling rush right down to her fingertips. 

But then he scooted her gently to the side and went around to the other side of the bed, to the wardrobe. "I'm running out of clean shirts."

"I don't even want to know what your dry cleaning bill is going to look like when this thing is over."

"Yeah, about that." He turned to face her head on, one of his ubiquitous plaid shirts in hand. Red, brown, and cream, Toni noted. "What you said downstairs. You really want this to be over?"

"Of course I do," she said, too quick. Ruining things again. 

His face fell. "Okay, yeah. Me too." He thrust an arm into the sleeve of the shirt.

It was all Toni could do not to launch herself across the bed and take the shirt away. "No, Hobson, wait. All I meant was, I want to catch the killer. To stop this guy from hurting anyone else. I didn't mean—I mean, of course I don't want to get rid of you, but this thing has put such a strain on us, with all the rules about what we can and can't do." Right now, she had a loophole that could get her one of the things she wanted, and she was in the mood to use it.

"About those rules." One arm still stuck in his ridiculous shirt, he moved to the foot of the bed. Toni matched him step for step, meeting him halfway. "Your boss said we can't do anything unprofessional."

"At the house." She gripped the wooden foot rail to keep from throwing herself at him and showing him exactly how unprofessional she could be. "We aren't at the house now."

He stepped closer, bringing the scents of spilled beer, kitchen grease, and sweat with him. And still a hint of fish. "You didn't come up here to talk about rules, Brigatti." 

"I didn't?" 

He reached out and brushed her hair back behind her ear. "You came up here to frustrate the hell out of me."

There was that word again. "You think I'm not frustrated?" She caught his hand, keeping it next to her ear, letting its heat radiate onto her cheek. She tried to ignore the sensible cop part of her brain that was screaming at her to stop, that she wasn't being fair to either of them. But she was so damn tired of being safe, of being fair, of holding in too many things she should have said before the undercover assignment had begun. 

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, once, twice, and a third time, working his top lip, then the bottom one. He cupped the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair, but it wasn't enough to hold her up. She pulled the shirt off his other arm and drew his hand around her waist, settling it on the small of her back so he could keep her from falling backward out of sheer, dizzying relief. 

"Okay, yeah, seems like maybe you're frustrated too," he rasped against her cheek, breathless as she felt. 

He didn't know the half of it. She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his back, then drew away from him, just far enough so she could unbutton her shirt. But her hands were too shaky, the buttonholes too small. How had she ever gotten dressed this morning? 

"Let me." Hobson undid every button, his fingers steady and sure but so, so slow. Toni shrugged her shoulders out of the shirt and he drew it down her arms and off, his hands moving like molasses to her wrists. Once the shirt was gone, he slipped her bra straps off her shoulders, but as steady as his hands had been, he couldn't work the clasp in back. She swatted him away and undid it herself, then brought his hands back where she wanted them. He traced the curve of her breasts with his fingers and ran the pads of his thumbs over her nipples, a slow, delicate torture. "God, you're perfect."

She put her palm against his skin, against his beating heart. "And you're—" Maybe it was because they'd finally let their mutual desire show, because they'd actually done something about it for the first time in forever, that the tight coil in her chest loosened enough to let her be a little playful. She drew a circle around a bruise that spanned two ribs. "You're penguined."

"Aw, come on, Toni." He lifted her chin with two fingers and kissed her, still slow, still sweet, still not enough. "What are you—" He broke off, eyes widening, as she slipped her hands under the waistband of his jeans. His mouth, his brain might not have known what she was doing, but the rest of his body did. "Now?" he breathed.

"Now." Instead of the sexy impatience she'd been shooting for, the word came out as an indignant squeak when he backed away from her, hands lifted as if he were surrendering. "Don't you want to do this?"

"Of course I do, but I want to do it right." Heavy breaths punctuated every other word. "I don't want to mess this up. I don't want to mess us up."

"The only way you're going to mess anything up is if you keep talking."

"Yeah?"

She'd pushed him around before, but never as desperately as she did now, grabbing his arms and forcing him back against the wardrobe, stretching herself up to kiss his mouth, his neck, to close every last bit of space between them. "Hobson," she whispered between kisses and tiny, teasing bites, "I promise you, if we don't break every rule in the damn book right now I'm going to explode."

"Can't have that," he breathed into her collarbone. She couldn't see his face, but she knew from the way his voice deepened that there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "I wouldn't want to be the one who blew up Chicago's best detective."

A few seconds later, the rest of their clothes hit the floor and Toni hit the bed. Hobson came with her, cradling her head to make sure she didn't smack into the headboard, running his fingers through her hair while he sucked gently at her neck. Then, as if she were a toy and he knew exactly how to wind her up, he trailed kisses from her breastbone down to her waist, and then along her inner thighs. 

Before she lost her head completely, she asked, "You have protection, right?"

"Oh, right, sorry, yeah." He shifted himself off her so he could reach the nightstand and opened its top drawer. "I was married once, you know." 

She pushed up onto her elbows. "I don't want your ex-wife's leftovers."

He held up a condom in a foil wrapper. "Relax. Or don't," he added at her incredulous guffaw. "They're new. When I first started hoping you and I were more than occasional undercover partners, I thought I ought to make sure I was ready." His puppy dog eyes made an appearance, and when he said, "That okay with you?" she knew he was talking about everything, all of it, the condom and the loft and the moment and him. Especially him.

"Pretty sure it's the most romantic gesture any guy's ever made for me. Get over here."

He straddled her and she rolled the condom on, feeling him harden even more at her touch. She focused on her breathing to keep her hands steady. Just like at the shooting range. Once it was secure, she ran her hands along his thighs, his hips, his butt. He let out a groan. "Toni. God. When—"

"Now, please, now." Wet, aching with how ready she was, with how ready she'd been for longer than she could count, she angled her hips to give him better access, used her hands to line them both up just right. Bracing his hands on either side of her, he rocked into her, slow at first. Almost too slow; he hadn't been kidding about wanting to get it right. But as much as she wanted it, needed it, she found the few extra seconds stretched like taffy and gave her room to release her need to control every movement, to feel the delicious sensation of the tight spring inside her chest spiraling open. 

Their rhythm built, both of them breathing in time with it. His hands seemed to be everywhere, every touch making her shiver with its intensity. 

He came first, but she wasn't far behind. When she shuddered and let out a low, satisfied moan, he pulled himself away a little bit and lifted her sweat-stuck hair from her neck and the side of her face. "You okay?"

"That has to be the stupidest question you've ever asked me." She traced the line of his jaw with still-trembling fingers, then drew him closer, kissed his lips. Gary Hobson. Nocturnal agoraphobe. Former murder suspect. Presidentially pardoned accomplice of a world-class jewel thief. And quite possibly the sweetest guy she'd ever known. "Of course I'm okay. It's just--it really has been a long time," she admitted.

He looked down at her with the shit-eating grin that had been her first clue that there was more to Gary Hobson than the aw-shucks demeanor that was his default. "Between feedings?"

She laughed against his lips, remembering the kiss that had started them down this road. "You asshole."

The corners of his mouth drew in, turning his expression serious. "It was worth the wait. There's nothing else I've wanted, not since you ran downstairs in a towel—maybe even since you sneezed on my cat that first time."

"Yeah, well, it took me a little longer." She wasn't sure he was being honest with himself; he'd been dating Blondie that first time they'd met. But she didn't want to bring that up, not now, and if she was honest with herself, her feelings for him had taken root, however tentatively, that same day. "But maybe it shouldn't have." 

"I don't care when it started, as long as it doesn't go away." 

"Are you kidding?" She shifted her hips out from under him and rolled them both over, putting herself on top. "We're just getting started."

After that, she lost track of time. And the rules, and the sounds of the city that drifted through the open window. They dozed and woke and found new ways to explore each other until just before dawn, when she finally exhausted everything she'd kept bottled up for longer than she liked to count. "It's okay," Hobson murmured as she fell asleep in his arms. She wasn't sure which of them he was talking to. "We have time. Lots and lots of time."

* * *

A motor woke Gary up. A motor that rumbled into his shoulder, making his whole torso vibrate. He opened one eye. Cat sat just behind him, purring steadily, its delicate chin hooked over his shoulder. "How long have you been there?" he asked, as the daylight angling through the windows registered. He'd slept later than usual. Then again, he thought as Toni—Toni Brigatti, Chicago Police Detective, professional badass—stirred in his arms, he'd had a pretty good reason to oversleep. "How long have you been here?" he asked, dropping a kiss on the smooth curve of her shoulder.

"Probably too long," she mumbled. 

Cat's purring reached a crescendo, then shifted into a more vocal mewing. Gary tried to swat it away, paper be damned. After turning to water the night before, he needed a few minutes to reconstitute himself. 

Or to re-liquefy, he thought hopefully when Toni squirmed and rolled over to face him. Her eyes were dark and full. "Maybe not long enough," she said.

He traced her spine with one finger, thrilled at how his touch made her shiver. He bent his head to kiss her, but before he could do any more than that, Cat wedged itself between them, butting its head at his chest.

"Okay, okay." He sat up and saw the paper at his feet. "What could be so important on a Sunday morning?"

"Sunday? Oh no." Toni sat up quickly. "We have to get back to Beverly."

"Beverly's all rules and frustration." Gary paged through the paper, barely registering stories about road construction, political corruption, and sewer repairs. "Can't we at least have breakfast before we go back to that?"

Toni crawled over him and out of the bed, collecting her clothes from the floor. "If we leave now, we can get back before Wayne and Judy come out for their paper and wonder where we are."

"You can," Gary said reluctantly. He'd come to a stop on page eight. "I have to head up to Evansville in an hour or so to stop a fire at St. Boniface. Father Benito falls asleep in the confessional and some altar boys set the sanctuary on fire messing around with the votive candles."

Toni perched on the side of the bed, buttoning her shirt. "I promised my captain we wouldn't step out of line, wouldn't make ourselves targets. He'll have my head if he finds out about any of this."

"Maybe you should come with me." Gary brushed his lips across the back of her neck, eliciting a shudder that made him hard all over again. "How's it go? 'Bless me father, for I have sinned. I've had lustful thoughts about the woman to whom I'm pretending to be married.'"

"Down, boy." Toni captured the hand he'd snaked around her waist before he could move it any higher. "You'll have to confess for the both of us. We were away all day yesterday. I need to get back to work, and so do you."

"I don't know if I can do this," he said when she stood. He meant all of it—the paper, the charade in Beverly, hell, just letting her walk out the door, especially when she smiled down at him, that full, wide, half-of-her-face smile he'd been missing for weeks. 

She cupped his jaw with a feather light touch. "We'll figure it out." One sweet, lingering kiss, and she was out the door.

"Thanks a lot," Gary groused at Cat, who let out a satisfied meow and stalked off in search of a patch of sunlight.

At least he had time to shower before he needed to go to Evansville. Turned out he had time to slurp some coffee as well, since a huge pot was already brewed when he went down to the kitchen. Which meant…yup. Marissa was out in the bar, working on the books from the night before. She was set up with her laptop and ledger at one of the high tables in the middle of the floor.

"Refill." Gary traded one of the two mugs he'd poured for the cold one in front of her. He waited until she removed her headphones before he asked, "Don't you have church this morning?"

"In a couple hours. I have to catch up on the books. I was too busy talking to Toni last night to make yesterday's entries. Speaking of which," she added with an all-too-innocent expression, "She turned down a coffee on her way out the door a little while ago. Did you guys sleep here last night?"

"I don't know how much we actually slept," Gary admitted as a yawn split his face, "but yeah, we, I mean, I—oh, hell." A wide grin had broken across Marissa's face. "I don't want to hear it from you," he said, trying to stay stern. She pressed her lips together for a split second, but no way would Marissa be able to help herself. Hell, he should be thanking his lucky stars Chuck was long gone. "Not one word," he warned.

"May I say four?"

"You just did."

She rolled her eyes, then held up a new finger for each word. "I'm happy for you." 

Happy. This was what it felt like. Not only because he'd had sex, but because Toni Brigatti trusted him, and he trusted her. He might even…okay, he did. But he wasn't sure how Toni would react if he told her that.

Still, despite the paper and the fire and the fact Toni'd had to leave so soon, happy was the right word. "Me, too." Even he could hear the note of wonder in his voice.

And then, because she was Marissa and not Chuck, she let him off the hook. "So," she said, propping her elbows on the table. "What's on the agenda for today?"

* * *

Toni wondered if anyone, even Hobson, would ever know how hard it was for her to drive away from McGinty's that morning. Because as much as she wanted to believe what had happened the night before wasn't anything more than the natural progression of an adult relationship and useful release of some of the tension between them, the truth was a little, well, giddier than that.

No one else had to know how light she felt, as if an extra lung she'd only now realized she possessed had been pumped full of helium. No one else, except maybe the kid at the Starbucks drive-thru who flashed her a knowing smile when she pulled up to his window and had to turn the radio down, had to know she sang along—not just hummed, but sang—all the way to the outskirts of the neighborhood. 

In a tiny burst of rebellion, she left the radio at top volume, though she reverted to humming. Nobody needed to wake up to her rendition of "No Scrubs." It seemed like a good compromise between calling attention to herself and blatantly going against her captain's admonitions. Which she would never do; even what had happened last night didn't count because it hadn't happened here. Escaping on a technicality was still an escape.

What could it hurt to nudge the case along? God only knew if Hobson would be able to pull off their act after last night. The sooner she found the killer, she told herself as she turned onto Hoyne, the sooner they'd be able to figure out a way forward. Which she wanted to do, more than she would have expected even two weeks ago. With the weirdest guy she'd ever met.

'Weirdest' was probably the wrong word. She'd locked up plenty of oddballs in her day and protected plenty more in her time with the Marshals. But none of them let a magic newspaper dictate their lives. The thing about Hobson was, he didn't seem to know why it came to him, any more than she or anyone else did. For the most part, he accepted it as his responsibility and did the best he could to meet it. Maybe he was more normal than she'd initially thought.

She pulled into the driveway, and though it was not yet eight on a Sunday morning, Wayne and Judy were out on their front porch, reading the paper. Of course, it was one of the last mornings it would be warm enough to do that, so she couldn't blame them, but she made a point of holding up her two Starbucks cups as she waved, implying that Hobson was inside, asleep, and she'd just gone out for a morning coffee run. She showered and was out on her own porch in time to see them leave for church.

For a few minutes, she let herself enjoy the morning, curled on the swing with her coffee and watching the sporadic parade of sedans, minivans, and the occasional jogger. The fall breeze teased at her arms and neck, reminding her of Hobson's slow touches, his fingers on her skin that wouldn't stop moving even as they'd fallen asleep a few hours ago. She could have spent the whole day remembering…well, not the whole day. The longer she thought like this, the more she wanted him with her, wanted to make new memories.

But they could only do that if she found the killer. Once the caffeine hit her system and gave her a temporary boost, she trailed an extension cord from the front room and out a window so she could pull up her spreadsheet of victims. Maybe a little time off and a new perspective would help her see the connection. 

It had to be more than a simple matter of racial prejudice, as if that were ever straightforward. The Walkers had lived here safely for years, and if Paige really had an affair with Patrick Maloney, why hadn't the killer gone after her as well? 

Behavior had to be the key. Something the victims had done to trigger the killer's worst impulses. The problem was, most of those triggering events wouldn't be recorded anywhere, especially not with the older cases. She'd have to talk to people who had known the victims and hope their memories weren't too clouded by tragedy and time. 

There was one victim, or rather one potential victim, to whom she could speak. She left her laptop on the porch and went to Tim and Mike's house, but though their car sat in the driveway, two rings of the doorbell didn't get her an answer. Maybe they'd gone for a bike ride, she thought as she walked back, and then wished she hadn't. The bike reminded her of watching Hobson fix it, which reminded her of the way his fingers had curved around the wrench, which reminded her of last night. She huffed out a rueful laugh as she settled back onto the porch. Even with the whole of Chicago between them, he had the power to distract her.

She called Aaron Singer and got a few details about Jessica's activism, but he couldn't remember any particular protests or marches that might have set off someone in the neighborhood. He gave Toni a list of the organizations where she'd volunteered. "Most of them will have records of what they did last year. Thanks, Ms. Snow," he added. "You don't know how hard it's been to get anyone to take me seriously. To think that someone's finally going to tell the real story of why she died, that—" He gave a loud, noisy gulp. "It means everything, that you're helping me do the last thing I can ever do for her."

"I don't know the whole story yet," Toni said; even being as honest as she could with the guy didn't assuage the twist of guilt in her stomach. "But I'll do my best to find it."

She used the laptop to look up phone numbers for the organizations: Habitat for Humanity, Greenpeace, the Hull House Association. But before she could make any calls her cell rang.

"Hey, Toni, it's me." 

The slight hesitation in his voice, as though he wasn't sure of his welcome, set off a faint flutter in her chest. "Hi, Greg. What's up?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, you're Nia."

Only the squirrels skittering around the maple tree could possibly hear her, but she lowered her voice anyway. "Unless you're at the pay phone over at the County Fair, nobody in Beverly is going to know what you call me. How'd it go at the church?"

"Right. Okay. Toni. It went fine. I used an altar boy's robe to put out the fire."

"You what?"

"The altar boy wasn't in the robe at the time. Look, I'm headed down to Wrightwood, there's a thing at a donut shop, and then I'm free until later in the afternoon. I thought I'd stop by the house in between, if that's okay."

"Why wouldn't it be? It's your house, too."

"No, I know, it's just--last night, if that makes things weird between us, I don't want to—to—"

"Mess it up?" she filled in. "You didn't. You won't. You're supposed to be here; it'll look wrong if you're not. If things are weird, we'll figure it out. Weird seems to work for us."

His voice slowed, thickened. "Yeah, I guess it does. I'll probably run by McGinty's later. Pick up some clean clothes. If you'd want to meet me for dinner or something."

"You're pushing it, Hobson." But she didn't say no.

He chuckled. "I'll be by the house around two." 

It was nearly noon, Toni noted after she shut her phone. That gave her a couple of hours to figure out how to handle him—and herself—in this new territory into which they'd dipped their toes.

Or, even better, to solve the case. 

She put in calls to all the places on the list Aaron had given her, but most of them weren't open on Sunday. The person who answered the phone at Habitat told her last September's build had been about five miles southwest of Beverly, but he didn't have detailed records of all the volunteers. Toni doubted Jessica could have set off a killer by picking up a hammer or a paintbrush that far out of the neighborhood, but she added it to the spreadsheet anyway.

By the time she'd tried all the numbers, the caffeine had worn off, but the appeal of the porch swing on a beautiful day had not. She dozed off watching a few white clouds drift in from the west, and woke up with a start when a warm weight landed in her lap. "What are you doing here?" Hobson's cat stretched along her legs, as if they'd always been cozy like this. "Shoo, get down." Swiveling its head to fix her with a baleful gaze, it slithered out of her lap, but not off the swing. It moved to the other end and curled up, watching her carefully. Toni closed her eyes again, but before she could fall back into blissful unconsciousness, she heard the tip-tap of sensible shoes on the porch boards.

"Hullo, dear." Judy stopped a few feet away, a sweet smile on her lips and a foil-wrapped package in her hands. "Long night?"

"Oh, you know, it's Sunday. I end up trying to catch up on all my sleep." Belatedly, Toni realized Judy was positioned where she could see the laptop. Luckily, the screensaver had been engaged in the time she'd been dozing. She shut the lid abruptly. "Have a seat. Shoo, let her sit," she told the cat, but it ignored her. 

"I'm fine right here." Judy perched on the wide cement railing of the porch. "I won't be staying long. I baked some banana bread and thought you might like an old fashioned treat. It's still warm, if you'd like to try some now. You don't have any allergies, do you?"

"Not to food, no." Toni took the package, which was indeed warm. "Thanks. I'll share it with Greg when he gets home. He went to visit his mom for a bit." Where the hell had that come from?

"How sweet." Judy's roadmap of wrinkles deepened when she smiled. "How's your scrapbook coming?"

"Oh, you know, I'm working on it. Added a few memories last night." Toni hoped Judy wouldn't ask to see it any time soon.

"I'm so glad." If Judy knew Toni was lying, she didn't let it show. "I love to think of my work going out into the neighborhood, recording our history."

Toni wondered if Judy's history of the neighborhood looked anything like her spreadsheet. How many scrapbooks must the woman have made over the years? "Everyone I've talked to appreciates your work," she said. 

Judy beamed. "I guess you can say it's how I help build a better Beverly."

Like lock tumblers spinning into place, a few words clicked in Toni's sleep-deprived brain. Souvenirs. Serial killers. Scrapbooks. Control Issues.

Judy Healy?

None of those pieces gave her a clear connection or motive, none of it was proof, but since she was down to grasping at straws, she might as well tug at this one. She sat up a little straighter and fixed Judy with the blandest smile in her arsenal. "You and Wayne must have lived here a long time. Do you remember most of the families who've lived in this house?"

"Oh, of course, dear. There were the Lees, they're the couple who just moved. Before them, it was the Hansons in the eighties, and the Dawsons were when we moved in. My, you do ask a lot of questions."

Toni gestured at her laptop, silently repeating the names to herself so she wouldn't forget. "I'm working on a history of the neighborhood. Trying to branch out from writing crime into features," she added quickly.

"I can't wait to read it." The roadmap on her face shifted into a frown when Mike and Tim rode up the driveway on their bikes, calling out hellos.

Toni waved back, wondering if she was imagining the reason for the change in Judy's demeanor. "They're such great neighbors," she tried. "Always doing little favors for us and coming over to chat."

"They certainly have tried to ingratiate their way into the community." Judy tore her gaze away from the guys. Her smile reappeared. Definitely fixed, Toni thought. "Are you sure you don't want any bread?"

"Not right now." Toni stood. "I have a few calls to make. But thank you so much. I'm sure we'll enjoy it." She waited until Judy was out of earshot to add, "As soon as I have it tested." 

Over on the swing, the cat lifted its head and meowed.

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts," she told it.

* * *

The sky had almost completely clouded over by the time Gary made it back to Beverly. Riding the Metra gave him time to work out how to control himself around Toni. He could. For the sake of her job, for the sake of the future last night had promised, he would. Whether or not either one of them would enjoy it was a different matter.

The car wasn't in the driveway. Maybe she'd pulled it into the garage in anticipation of the rainstorm his paper predicted. "Hon?" he called as he stepped into the kitchen. He gulped back her real name. If that came out of his mouth when he saw her, he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from plopping her down on the kitchen table and doing a few things that definitely weren't covered in the CPD's Consultant's Contract. "Nia?" 

The house answered back with the ticking of the mantle clock and the soft shushing of the afternoon breeze through the open windows, which scooted a piece of paper folded like a little tent across the kitchen island. "Greg" was printed on the outside in Toni's neat, firm hand. He flipped it open. "Had to go to work for a bit. Got a lead on the story. Watch out for Trojan horses. Nia."

"What's that all about?" he asked Cat, who'd wandered in from the front of the house. It rubbed against Gary's leg and he gave it an absent scratch on the head. A little peeved that Toni had left when she knew he'd made the effort to come back and put in an appearance, he opened the refrigerator. There were a few burgers left over from Friday night. He plopped one on a plate and stuck it in the microwave, but before it finished heating up, the doorbell rang.

"Hey Wayne," he said when he saw who it was. "What's up?"

Wayne rubbed the back of his neck with a rueful chuckle. "Much as I hate to admit it, I need some help. You ever used a propane grill?"

Gary nodded. "My dad has one. It's great." Which was true; Bernie had cooked last year's Thanksgiving turkey on the thing.

"I bought one on the way home from church. I guess the cookout at your place the other night inspired me. Got it put together, but I the darn thing won't start. Do you have time to take a look?"

"Sure, no problem." He followed Wayne across the street and around to the backyard, which was a carbon copy of theirs, minus the trees and swing set. A propane grill, smaller than his dad's and shiny new, stood in the center of the concrete patio. Wayne nodded toward the back door. "I'd rather not admit to Judy that I need help. I promised her I'd read the directions, but the print is small. I went by the pictures."

"If she asks, I'll say I stopped by because I was nosy." Gary knelt next to the grill and checked that the line to the tank was hooked up properly. "From what little I know, it looks okay. Maybe we should tighten the connections a bit."

"I got them as tight as I could." Wayne shrugged and held up his hands. "All those years woodworking, and now arthritis sets in. I think I left the wrench in the kitchen when I went to wash my hands. Be right back. You might try flicking the ignition switch. For all I know I was doing that wrong."

"Will do." Gary stood up and opened the lid, searching for the switch.

"You're a life saver, young man. Be back in a minute."

Gary's hand was on the switch when a yowl near his feet startled him.

"What are you doing here?" he grunted at Cat, then recognized the look. He yanked the paper out of his back pocket and flipped pages until he saw a new headline. "'Propane Explosion Kills—' Oh, crap." He dropped the paper onto the grill tray and tried to lift the grill, to hurl it away from the house, but it wouldn't budge. 

"Son?" Wayne had appeared on the back step. "What are you—"

"Get back in the house!" In one motion, Gary scooped up Cat and kicked backward to push the grill into the yard. He lunged for the back door and fell on top of Cat. The grill exploded behind him with a whooshing boom.

* * *

"Adam Enersen. 1973." Winslow dropped a printout on Toni's desk and sat down on the edge of it, planting his butt right on her spreadsheet. "Took me a while to connect him to your house because he wasn't the owner. He lived with his aunt and uncle."

"Rob and Kathy Dawson," Toni read from the Tribune article. "Yeah, this is one of the families Judy mentioned." She scanned the rest of the story, then looked up, wincing. "He was stabbed by a pitchfork?"

"Impaled, technically. What a way to go, huh?" He wasn't laughing about it. For Winslow, that qualified as genuine sympathy. "According to his uncle, he was perpetually high. He was living with them because he couldn't hold down a job. The uncle let him stay in exchange for yard work and chores. When he fell on the pitchfork, he was too stoned to save himself. Pulled it away and bled out right on your back patio."

An unemployed drug addict living with relatives. Judy wouldn't have approved of that. But even thirty years ago, Toni couldn't imagine Judy having the strength to stab a kid with a pitchfork, no matter how stoned he'd been. Given some of the other deaths—the collapsing deck, the falling mirror—she suspected Judy hadn't been working alone. "Her husband is a carpenter," she said. "He offered to refinish our bookshelves."

"What are you saying? An old married couple is the Bonnie and Clyde of Beverly?"

"It fits better than anything else we've come up with." Okay, so it was the only thing they'd come up with. Toni tapped the edge of the paper on her desk. "Want to lay bets she has a scrapbook of her own with articles just like this one?"

Winslow shook his head. "Man, remind me never to move out of River North."

Toni sat back in her chair, arms folded. "Still doesn't tell me why they did it. Until we know that, finding evidence that isn't circumstantial is going to be tough, not to mention pinpointing their next victim."

"You ask me, we already know that last bit. Got the results on the banana bread yet?"

"No, but Sam's down in the lab working on it."

"On a Sunday?" Winslow whistled. "You must have some kinda pull, Brigatti."

"He owes me one." Winslow was a fine one to talk; he'd given up his day off to help her pull records, after all. "I always make sure he's in on my most interesting cases."

"Those wouldn't happen to be the cases that come via Gary Hobson, would they?"

"Mr. Peanut Butter and Jelly? Hardly," she lied. Shooing him off her desk, she picked up the phone. "Let's see what Jim Byrne knows about the Healys."

* * *

"All that CO2 probably killed the grass." Wayne shook his head at the arc of foam Gary had sprayed with the kitchen fire extinguisher. 

"Oh, Wayne, stop fussing about the yard." Judy had come running at the sound of the explosion. "When I think of what could have happened, how either one of you might have been hurt, goodness, I'm glad you were here." She beamed at Gary. "We don't even need to call 911."

Ordinarily, Gary would have argued that point. But nobody had been hurt, other than a bit of a singed feeling on the back of his neck that Judy told him was a red spot, no worse than a sunburn, so he let it go.

"First Mike's mower, now this," Judy went on. "I don't understand all the accidents happening on this block, but I'm so grateful you were here to be the hero again, Greg."

"I just, uh, right time—" Gary was too busy watching Cat, who was playing in the charred remains of the paper, to say it coherently.

"You're shook up, aren't you?" Judy gestured toward the back door. "Come sit down and have a soothing cup of tea."

"I should check on the grill," Gary said. "Make sure there won't be another explosion."

"I'll take care of it." Wayne took the extinguisher from Gary's unresisting hands. "Judy's right, go get yourself together. Though if you want a shot of whisky instead, I wouldn't blame you."

"I'm afraid your cat can't come in," Judy said when Gary followed her to the door. She made a shooing motion with her foot. Cat backed off with a yowl.

"It's okay, buddy," Gary told Cat. "I'll be out in a minute." 

Inside, Judy pulled out a chair and handed Gary a towel. "Wipe your hands off and sit down. I put the kettle on just before it happened."

While she busied herself with the tea, Gary wiped soot, dirt, and tiny bits of gravel off his hands. The ringing in his ears wasn't too bad; he'd been around much bigger explosions in his time. But it made it difficult to think, to calculate the odds this had been an accident. He hadn't had time to read the article, but he assumed Wayne had been the intended victim. That didn't fit the pattern at all. Wayne and Judy didn't just blend in with the neighborhood; they were the neighborhood.

"Now drink up." Judy handed him a steaming mug with a logo from Branson, Missouri. She sat down across from him, watching expectantly. "I'd slice you a piece of banana bread, but I gave Nia the loaf I made earlier. You'll have to try it later. What happened to your face?"

"The bruises?" Most of the marks caused by the penguins' curiosity had faded, but there was one right across his forehead and another about the size of a quarter in front of his left ear. "Those happened yesterday. I fell down." 

He ducked any further questions by gulping at the tea. Judy chattered at him about the weather and her husband's stubborn refusal to read directions. He figured she was almost as shook up about the explosion as he was; after all, if Gary hadn't been there, her husband might have died. "There must have been a leak in the line," he said when she asked him how it could have happened. "With the lid closed, the gas could have built up and been sparked by the igniter." Weird, though, that the paper had only warned him about the explosion at the last minute. It was almost as if there wouldn't have been an explosion at all if Gary hadn't come over to help Wayne.

"A little more, dear?" Judy brought a teapot made of blue pottery to the table and refilled his mug. "My friend Julia is a herbalist, and she says this is the most calming blend. The Chinese have used it for centuries." Gary dutifully drank the tea. It tasted a little off, but he'd always been more of a coffee drinker. It didn't do much for his post-explosion headache, but it chased the sooty, charred taste out of his mouth. 

"I was telling your wife earlier, you are both such a welcome addition to the neighborhood. I suppose you proved how right I was by saving Wayne, didn't you?"

His wife. Nia. She'd warned him about Trojan horses in her note. 

"What was that?" Judy asked.

Had he said that out loud? "Nothing. I was just remembering something I have to do." But he'd already messed it up. 

The grill was the Trojan horse, Wayne and Judy were the Greeks. He'd survived the attack, but he had to tell Toni before they knew he was on to them. "I should go now. And do it. Gotta be in Oak Park before—" Gary blinked hard. There were two Judys pouring him a third cup of tea. "I think I should go home. My wife, she's—" Toni, that was his wife. But not exactly. He wasn't supposed to say that. 

The two Judys were joined by three Waynes, watching him silently. Gary stood. "What's going on?"

The room tilted, and he fell.

* * *

"Wayne and Judy Healy have been part of this community for as long as I've lived there," Jim Byrne told Toni. 

"You'd be able to say that about any of our suspects," Toni pointed out. Returning from a late lunch run, Winslow handed her a greasy paper bag, and she nodded her thanks. Tacos were better than the nothing she'd been running on all day, and at this point she trusted fast food more than anything homemade.

"True." Jim sighed. "What you're saying makes sense. They've always been very involved in the neighborhood. Maybe too involved. Judy especially will drop by without calling, and even though Wayne's retired he still takes on carpentry jobs for friends. They probably know the layout of every house in the radius of this investigation."

"Did Judy ever work outside the home?"

"You know, I think she did. Hold on, let me ask Rose." After a muffled conversation, during which Toni guzzled half her soda, he returned to the line. "Rose says Judy trained as a nurse, but ended up working reception at a chiropractor's office."

"Which makes it more likely she knows about drugs and poisons," Toni said. "And how to rig an EpiPen."

"They're both avid gardeners. Rose says Judy fusses over those roses as if they were her children."

"Does that mean they would know how to handle a nest of yellowjackets?"

"A killer, or killers, right under my nose." Jim's voice took on a rough undertone. "I've known for months now, of course, but still, to think it's two people I've known most of my adult life and never figured it out, that's hard. Maybe I should give up my pension."

She ought to get him together with Hobson for a meeting of the Everything Is Our Fault Society. "I'm sure you've earned it in lots of other ways. The fact is, they may have been doing this for over four decades, and nobody knew. They're smart. They've changed their MO every time. Now that we're sure it's them, we can start working on why they did it, and how to prove every death they're responsible for. Any insight you have on that account, you'll call me, right?"

"I have your number. And Detective?"

"Toni."

"Toni, you take care, you hear me? They're right across the street from you."

She hadn't told Jim about the banana bread; didn't want to spread that one around until she knew if it really was a weapon. "We'll be fine. Forewarned is forearmed."

She said good-bye, then munched on a taco while she filled Winslow in. 

"Whatever the old guy thinks, it's still a circumstantial case," he pointed out. "Unless your banana bread comes through, the state's attorney will laugh you out of her office."

Toni nodded. "I need to get a confession out of her, or find her souvenirs. Maybe I should go ask for her help with my scrapbook. Think she'd admit to murder while we're bonding over glitter glue?"

Winslow grinned around a mouthful of tortilla. "Now that, I would pay to see."

* * *

Gary didn't lose consciousness. At least he didn't think he did. He could hear Wayne and Judy talking—arguing—somewhere over his head. He could hear the tea kettle simmering on the stove and smell the charred grass outside. He could see the pattern of the linoleum on their kitchen floor, gold and cream rectangles in all different sizes that fit together perfectly. 

What he couldn't do was move, at least not in any way that mattered. He could open and close his eyes and wiggle his fingers and toes, but he couldn't sit up, couldn't even shift his hand out from under his ribs, where his arm was pinned and rapidly falling asleep. He tried to ask what the hell was going on, but though he could open his mouth, barely, he couldn't control his tongue. The only sound he could make was an undignified, "Whaaaaa."

"You've done it now," Wayne growled. His footsteps crossed Gary's line of vision and made the floor vibrate. "What are we supposed to do with him?"

"You were supposed to make sure he got caught in the explosion." Judy was over by the sink, washing the teapot and Gary's mug. "It was the perfect plan. Anyone who suspected it wasn't an accident would have thought it was an attempt on your life, not his. Now we have to find another way to kill him."

"If you'd let him go home before you drugged him up with tea, we wouldn't have to find a way to get him there." Wayne's sneaker-clad foot toed at Gary's shoulder, and another groan escaped Gary's slack mouth. "This stuff wears off pretty quick, doesn't it?"

Judy sniffed. "Do you think I haven't planned for this? I have an injection ready, a little cocktail that will keep him drugged until it gets dark. Then you can use the wheelbarrow to move him back to his house."

Move him. Like the Greeks had rolled their wooden horse into Troy. He couldn't move. Couldn't even speak. Couldn't get to Toni to tell her what he knew. Wayne and Judy were going to kill him, had killed all those people. All the ones he couldn't save. All the ones Snow hadn't saved. He had to let Toni know. Had to make sure they didn't kill anyone else.

"It's been a long time since we drowned anyone," Judy was saying.

"Their bathtub is upstairs. I threw out my back getting that Sheffield woman up to hers, and that was almost ten years ago."

"You're not thinking creatively enough." There was a clink, clink. She was putting the dishes away, Gary thought. A sound that had echoed through his childhood, Mom organizing the kitchen. Everything in its place. "Don't worry, Wayne, I'm way ahead of you."

"Oh yeah? You think all these crazy ideas you get from your books are going to cover our tracks, but what about Nia? What do we do if she doesn't eat the bread you made? She's the reporter."

"She's no reporter. She doesn't have a single byline in the Sun-Times." Judy knelt down, put two fingers on his neck, and said in Gary's ear, "I checked back a few months. What I did find was her picture in the paper. She's a cop. Detective Antonia Brigatti." 

Gary's stomach twisted in on itself. If he didn't find a way to stop these two, he'd never see her again. Never touch her or make her laugh or show her exactly how he felt about her, the way he'd done last night. Gary willed himself to roll over, to sit up, to fight back. His shoulder twitched. That was it.

"That's even worse!" Wayne sounded like he was losing it. Gary supposed he was, too, but this wasn't like any panic he'd experienced. His heart wasn't racing the way his mind was, and his breathing had slowed. "Does she know? What if she's already told someone?"

"It doesn't matter. She'll come back for him sooner or later." Judy was still crouched next to Gary, her words worming their way from his ears to his helpless brain. "If it's sooner, we'll work her into the plan, and if it's later, we'll be long gone."

Gary couldn't say all the things he wanted to Judy, but he could think them at her, and hope his eyes at least showed how angry he was. 

"Hmm." She gave his cheek a patronizing little pat and stood.

"What do you mean, gone?" Wayne was right over him now, the sooty toe of his sneaker less than a centimeter from Gary's nose. 

"We're leaving tonight." 

"No." Wayne sounded more adamant than Gary had known he could be, except when he was expressing his opinions about brats, cucumbers, and Tim and Mike. "This is what we defended, all these years. The order of the neighborhood, making it a safe place for people like us. Keeping out the freaks. This is what we've been fighting for."

"The gig is up, Wayne. If that cop hasn't told anyone about us, you can bet they'll put it together when they find them." Judy's voice became stern, her words raining down like knives. Or maybe that was because feeling was creeping back into Gary's legs. He shifted his foot, just a little. 

Judy didn't seem to notice. "We've always understood we'd have to sacrifice the very thing we fought for. Ten percent of our Social Security checks, every month. We have a tidy sum in our account in the Caymans."

"That's for emergencies."

"What do you think this is? Look at it this way: you'll never have to shovel another walk. Let the gays and the Latinas and the hippies have the neighborhood." Her voice turned bitter, like Crumb's coffee. "We're never going to get rid of them all. We've been soldiers, and we've more than earned our retirement."

There was silence between them; Gary turned his head a few degrees, but all he could see above him were their jutted chins. 

"Just seems too soon, that's all," Wayne finally said.

"We'll have my scrapbooks to remember our work. Get them in the car. Be sure no one's watching."

"What about my tools?"

"We'll buy new ones."

Wayne sighed and walked out of the room. Judy nudged Gary a couple more times with her toe, then walked out of the room. He held himself still, though he wasn't at all sure how much he could move if he tried. Once she'd left, he tested his fingers again. He was able to wiggle them, and he eased his rib cage off his arm, flooding it with pins and needles as blood started circulating. With more effort than it usually took to lift the beer kegs in the storage room at McGinty's, he rolled onto his back and right into the table, banging his shin against a sturdy table leg. "Ow!" Okay, so his mouth worked again too. Kind of.

Judy was back at his side before his vision cleared. "She's on to you," Gary managed when she bent close, her blue eyes bright. He had no idea how much Toni knew. He didn't want to dwell on how much that terrified him.

"You seem like a nice man," Judy said pleasantly, pushing his collar away from his neck. He reached up to stop her hand, but she swatted his away. "I bet you'd be more manageable if you weren't with that little—what is she? Some kind of mixed breed spic? I know she's not one hundred percent Italian." She ran a hand through his hair, and he nearly got his arm out from under himself to stop her before she jabbed a needle in his neck.

* * *

The clouds that had been building all day opened up and let loose at sunset, right about the time Toni pulled up to McGinty's. She dashed in the front door and brushed rain from her shoulders as she made her way through the maze of mostly empty tables. Marissa stood behind the bar, washing glass steins. There wasn't any sign of Hobson.

"Hi, Marissa." This end of the bar was becoming familiar territory. Toni sat on a stool. "Little slower around here on a Sunday, huh?"

"Hey, Toni." Marissa sounded a little surprised. "It's definitely easier to handle, though we need all the business we can get. What brings you here?"

"I was at the station earlier. Hobson said he might stop by about now. I thought I'd give him a ride back to the house."

"He hasn't been here since early this morning. He had a few things to take care of in the paper, and then he said he was going back down there to be with you. To help establish your cover. He, um…" Still drying the same stein, Marissa slowed down, choosing her words carefully. "He said he knows being there makes things weird between you two, but he didn't want to let you down if you needed him."

"Well, yeah, I need him." Toni caught the knowing look that flickered across Marissa's face. But hell, they'd exchanged hellos at seven in the morning; no way Marissa didn't know what had happened last night. Still, she added, "To solve the case. He's been a big help."

"He'll be glad to hear that." She finally put the stein away. "He had something out in Oak Park late this afternoon, and then he said he might pick up some clean clothes."

Toni snorted. "You mean the kind that don't smell like fish or grease fires? He's running low on those." 

"Perpetually. You want something to drink while you wait?"

"Water's good." Toni watched her fill a glass with ice, thinking about what Marissa had told her about life with the paper in their scattered conversations and how much she worried over Hobson's antics. "Do you ever think how much easier it would be to keep track of him if he'd just get a—"

"Cell phone," they finished together. 

Marissa handed her the water. "Believe me, we have had that conversation. He thinks it would be a nuisance to keep track of, which, given his past history with the things, including a couple of mine, is a valid excuse. But nights like tonight, it would ease my mind to know where he is."

"We should exchange numbers. That way we can touch base if something comes up." 

"Sounds great." Marissa pulled her phone out of her apron pocket. 

Toni flipped hers open and saw a flashing icon. "Shoot, I missed a call. I'd better see what it is."

"Of course." Marissa moved down the bar, giving Toni the illusion of privacy.

The number was Winslow's. He picked up almost before she'd finished dialing. "Hey, partner, I thought you'd want to know. The lab just called and that banana bread you brought in is laced with a neuromuscular blocking agent. Sam says it's in the suxamethonium chloride family, though it has a slightly different chemical profile. He thinks it's probably plant based, but he didn't say which plant."

"So she poisoned the bread?" 

A few feet away, Marissa stopped drying wine glasses.

"Not exactly. That family of drugs are paralytic, like some of the drugs they use for surgery in anesthesia. The dosage in the bread isn't lethal, but if you ate enough it would cause you to lose control of most of your limbs. You'd still know what was going on around you; might be able to feel pain if it was strong enough, but your body wouldn't move when you told it to, and your heart and breathing would slow down"

A few more pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. "So if someone put your wrist through a circular saw, you wouldn't be able to fight back."

"Or to call or run for help, yeah." 

"Shit." Right under his nose, Jim had said. Right across the street from her. "Judy Healy, you sneaky old broad." What had the woman been planning for Toni? Surely if she would have come close to succeeding, Hobson would have read about it in his paper. 

"We need to arrest them, Toni. She tried to kill a cop."

"She tried to drug a cop," Toni corrected him. Giving up any pretense of ignoring Toni, Marissa abandoned the wine glasses and moved closer. "We can't prove any more than that without a confession. I want some details on that drug. Can we find trace evidence in any of the ME's records?"

"Not unless they screened for byproducts. Sam says it leaves the system fairly quickly."

She'd been sitting with the knowledge of what Judy and Wayne had been up to all day; now that she had proof, however tenuous, the scope of what they'd done, and to whom, was overwhelming. "I'm going to pay them a visit, see what I can dig up." Across the bar from her, Marissa jumped a little, then bent down and picked up the cat. "Maybe I dig up enough on them to nail them for more than just attempted paralysis." 

"Of a cop, Toni."

"We don't know she knew that." But of course she had. Judy knew her mysteries. The thing was, in Judy's novels, the detective always won, usually by getting a confession. "I'm going to talk to her, see if I can get her to spill. Whatever she had planned, she won't get away with it now that I'm on to her."

"You sure you don't want me down there?"

"Let's not spook them just yet. But it would help if you call Banks and Mulcahy, let them know what's going on."

"Will do. Get back to me if you need anything."

"Toni?" Still holding the cat, Marissa had turned slightly away, toward a television airing a breaking news segment. The sound was low, hard to hear even in the quiet bar. "Can you tell what that report's about?"

Toni wasn't sure what the news had to do with this break in her case, but she answered automatically, "There's a water main break out in Oak Park. Looks like it's flooded Rush Hospital."

"That wasn't supposed to happen. Gary knew about it. He told me he was going to stop it."

"Maybe something else came up." As far as Toni knew, the magic newspaper shifted stories, and therefore Hobson's priorities, all the time.

"Maybe," Marissa echoed. The cat squirmed and pawed at her arm. "But Cat's not happy, and that usually means something's happened with Gary or the paper. Did one of your neighbors really try to drug you?"

"Look, that call was police business—"

Marissa let the cat jump down. Her voice was steady, but her hands curled into fists. "If it has anything to do with what happened to Gary, it's my business, too. He should have been out in Oak Park and stopped the water main break. He should be here now. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, Toni, but I have a bad feeling about this."

"Me, too," Toni admitted. She called the landline at the house, but no one answered "I left him a note, but I couldn't tell him exactly what was going on. Someone else might have seen it."

"Don't you lock your doors?"

"Yes, but that won't matter if some of those people get nosy, whether or not they're killers." But Judy and Wayne were killers, no doubt about it. "Hobson gave you the number for the house, right? You keep calling. If you reach him before I get there, of if he comes back here, I want you to call me right away. My number's 312-555-1351. "

The lines around Marissa's mouth were tense as she entered the number in her phone, but there was a certain weariness around her eyes. Probably because she'd done this, worried about Hobson and set the wheels in motion to try to help him, more times than even Hobson's oversized police file would show. "You'll tell me what's going on as soon as you know, right?"

"You got it."

Marissa nodded. "Then go. Take care of him."

On an impulse she didn't fully understand, Toni reached over and gave Marissa's hand a light squeeze. "It's what we do."

* * *

Whatever drug Judy was using, she must have given him more the second time. Or maybe it was something different, because when Gary was next able to pull his thoughts together, it was dark, and he was moving. Not on his own; his body was in a small, rectangular box, his arms and legs draped over the sides. The wheelbarrow.

He was covered by a blanket, some kind of scratchy wool that didn't quite reach his fingers and toes. Those were cold and wet, soaked by the downpour pattering the blanket. The wheelbarrow rolled over some kind of bump or stick, and Gary's head bounced against the back rim, sending flashes of pain shooting into his teeth. Between that and the rain, he couldn't make out anything his captors said until the wheelbarrow jerked to an abrupt stop.

"You're sure no one saw us?" That was Wayne, his voice a low, gravelly whine. 

"Not in this rain." Judy whipped the blanket off Gary. Water pattered onto his face, obscuring his vision. "Let's get this over with before the cop comes home."

Detective, Gary thought. Toni was a detective, and she'd known. She must have. She'd left a note. He was the Trojan horse.

He flexed his fingers, and they responded. Maybe the rest of his limbs could move, too. When two sets of hands grabbed his arms and hauled him up and out of the wheelbarrow, he fought back, kicking and thrashing to get out of their grip.

"The hell?" Wayne yelped. They let go. Gary didn't get more than a half step away before his legs went limp as cooked spaghetti and gave out. He pushed himself up on his arms, but someone grabbed one of them and pulled it behind him, forcing him face down on the grass with a boot on his back. "I thought he couldn't move."

"Take off your belt." Judy's breathing was labored as Gary squirmed under her foot, but he couldn't manage more than that. 

"What for?"

"We'll tie his wrists with it."

"It'll leave marks. We've always been so careful."

Wayne must have taken off his belt anyway; he yanked Gary's other arm to the back and Judy wrapped the belt around his wrists, tightening it until the edge of the leather bit into his skin. "Doesn't matter this time," she said. "We'll be four states away before anyone knows he's dead."

They dragged him a few feet across the grass, then lifted his torso over the low cement lip of Mike and Tim's pond. Gary fought back for all he was worth, which was about two cents. No matter how desperately he willed his body to move, he was only capable of a few ineffectual kicks.

"Now what?" Wayne gasped. 

"Now you hold him under." Judy's matter of fact delivery matched the rain plop-plink-plopping into the pond. "We've done this before."

"The other ones were drugged."

"Just hold his head under until he stops moving, then count another minute to make sure."

Gary let out a growl between clenched teeth and redoubled his efforts, but Wayne's big hand smacked into the back of his head and pushed it into the black water. Now, in addition to fighting his way free, he had to fight to hold his breath, to resist the temptation to open his mouth and release the pressure building in his chest. He kept kicking, hoping to hit something that would make Wayne let go. 

Because he had to let go. Gary was not going to die here; Toni wasn't going to find him and live with the pain of being too late. He couldn't do that to her.

With his last fading remnants of consciousness, he realized one of Wayne's feet was planted between his shins. He brought his legs together quickly and rolled to the side. Wayne let go of his head and Gary completed the roll, stopping with his face toward the raining sky. He sucked in air as Wayne cursed and tried to untangle his legs from Gary's.

"Get up. Get up." Judy's voice was sharp, with a slightly frantic edge. "She's headed for our house."

She. Toni. "We'll work her into the plan," Judy had said. She had a plan to kill Toni. He had to warn her. Had to get away. It took every ounce of strength he had left, but he sat up. Got one knee under him, hoping he could stand. Opened his mouth to yell something, anything to let Toni know where he was.

But Judy slammed her forearm into his throat, and all that came out was a croaking gasp. He went down again, landing on his back on the edge of the pond. Judy and Wayne rolled him onto his stomach. He didn't have any strength left to fight them. It was all he could do to suck in a last little bit of air and shut his mouth before they pushed his head underwater.

* * *

Toni's certainty that something was wrong grew stronger the closer she got to Beverly. When she reached South Hoyne, all the lights were out in both her house and the Healys', but Wayne and Judy's car, which they usually kept in the garage, sat in their driveway. She parked her car at the end of it to block any escape attempt. Her gun and flashlight were in the glove compartment; she tucked the gun into her back waistband and marched up to the front door. No one answered when she rang the bell, so she tried their car. Unlocked.

The back seat was crowded with suitcases and a huge cardboard box. "Jackpot," Toni breathed. It was crammed with scrapbooks, the styles and dates on the covers getting older the further down she dug. A few mystery novels took up the smaller pockets of space.

The scrapbook on top was titled "1995—." Newspaper articles about the deaths of Trevor Sharp, Jeff Simpson, Zahid Durrani, and Jessica Singer, carefully cut and arranged, shared the pages with photos of houses and flyers for neighborhood events. Toni recognized most of the obituaries and articles from her own research.

Whatever else went down, she had proof. Now she needed the Healys so she could use it to put them away.

And Hobson. Much as she didn't like the idea, she couldn't shake the certainty that finding the Healys would lead her to him. 

She went around back, hugging the side of the house to keep out of the worst of the rain. A sweep of the yard with her flashlight caught a metallic glint, and she ventured out from under the eaves. A grill, or what was left of one, lay on its side in the yard, surrounded by charred grass. 

As she stood there trying to make sense of it, a gust blew rain sideways into her ear. It also made a dark, rectangular shape out in the grass lift and nearly flip over, but it settled back onto the grass as soon as the wind died down.

Paper, Toni discovered when she picked it up. More specifically, newsprint. Whatever had been printed on it had been obliterated by soot, dirt, and rain, but she had no doubt which newspaper it was, and to whom this copy belonged.

Hobson had been here when the grill caught fire, or blew up, or whatever it had done. Presumably that had been before the rain started, so at least an hour ago, probably longer. Had he been injured?

She made a more thorough search of the yard, but he wasn't there. She supposed that was good, considering. The question now was, did she search inside or try to find him elsewhere? If they were in the house, they surely would have seen her and tried to stop her going through their car.

Turning off her flashlight so she wouldn't give herself away, she went back to the driveway, watching the house for any sign of movement. It was dark, and any noise was masked by the pouring rain. 

Up and down the block, she saw lights in a few houses: Mike and Tim, the Walkers, the Brennans. All of them enjoying a cozy evening out of the rain, or at least that's what she hoped. It was too much to hope that Hobson was hanging out with any of them, not when he'd missed the hospital flood. He was with the Healys, and if she wanted to find them, she needed to start thinking like them.

Most of their victims had died in their own homes. Odds were better than even that he was across the street. She'd reached the Healys' car when she spotted a faint light bobbing behind Mike and Tim's house, erratic and wild as a restless ghost. 

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed as she ran. "Get down here," she told Winslow when he answered. "You, Paul, anyone from South District who can make it here sooner. The backyard next to ours. I have proof and I think they have Hobson." 

"On my way. Keep the scene contained until you have backup."

Her feet hit the driveway, and she stopped to catch her breath. Despite the rain, she could hear grunts and splashing. "I'm going in now."

"They drug their victims, remember? If Hobson's out of commission, you're outnumbered."

"They're double my age. I can take a couple of senior citizens." At least she hoped she could. She snapped the phone shut and made her way up the driveway as quietly as possible, trusting the rain to cover the sound of her footsteps. 

The bobbing light had vanished. Between the streetlamp and the windows at the back of the house, she could make out a hulking shape near the pond. She drew in a deep breath and turned on her flashlight, shouting, "Freeze! Chicago PD!" 

The beam caught two bodies. One of them was Wayne Healy, who straightened up from his crouch over the pond, staring at her with a slack face, his hands at his sides. The other, draped over the edge of the pond, didn't move.

Hobson. Her stomach gave a sick lurch, but her training took over. In one quick motion, she dropped the flashlight and yanked out her gun, taking steady aim at Wayne. "Step away from him. Now! Hands where I can see them!" He sidled one step away from Hobson, then two, and raised his hands into the air.

Hobson didn't move. Why wasn't he moving?

Paralytic drugs. Melissa Sheffield, drowned in the bathtub. 

He wasn't moving.

"Over there! Back against the garage!" For all she knew, she was shouting gibberish, but Wayne obeyed. Once he was a safe distance away, she grabbed Hobson's shoulders and hauled him out of the water, onto the grass. Rolled him to his back. In the beam from her discarded flashlight, his face glowed ghastly white. His head lolled to the side, but otherwise he didn't move. Didn't breathe.

"Son of a bitch," Toni spat. She spared a look at Wayne, to make sure he was still against the garage, while her brain scrambled for her first aid training. Call 911, that was first, but they were already on their way, sirens wailing from two different directions. 

His hands still lifted, Wayne was indeed backed up against the garage, next to an upended wheelbarrow. Something about his gaze was slightly askance. He wasn't looking at Toni. He was looking behind her, and to her right.

If she hadn't seen that, the rain and the sirens closing in and Hobson, however silent, would have distracted her attention from the footsteps. But she heard them, spun around and jumped to her feet in the same moment, and came face to face with Judy Healy. Before Toni could bring her gun up, Judy's arm came sailing toward her ear. Toni ducked, taking a glancing blow to the back of her head. She let her momentum carry her into Judy's gut. They both went down, rolling in the wet grass. Toni ended up on top. 

Three different sirens crescendoed and shut off. Toni shoved her gun into Judy's face, using her free hand to rip the rock out of her grip. "You—you're under arrest, you have—" She couldn't get Miranda out, couldn't take time to assess Judy's reaction, because Hobson was still lying on the grass behind her, and he wasn't moving. 

She scrambled to her feet, the gun still trained on Judy. "Cuff her! Cuff both of them! Get me a medic!" she shouted at the uniforms pounding up the driveway, and let them take over the scene--all of it. The serial killers and the pond and the rain and the neighbors who came running, she shut it all out and dropped to her knees next to Hobson.

Head to the side. Sweep the mouth. Head back up. Tilt the jaw toward the sky. Check for a pulse. Don't think about who it is. Don't look too closely at his face, at the weird angles cast by the ever-increasing sea of artificial light. Don't think about last night. 

Don't think. Do.

He had a pulse. Thank God. She plugged his nose and bent to give rescue breaths. 

Don't think. Don't remember. Count.

Four strong breaths. Force air into his lungs. Remind them of their job.

One of the uniforms stood over her with an umbrella, as if she wasn't already soaked to the skin. He put a hand on her shoulder when she paused to give Hobson a chance to breathe on his own.

"We've got an ambulance en route. This guy one of ours?"

She nodded, saving her breath for Hobson, but as she put her mouth over his again, one hand on his chest to make sure it rose when she breathed for him, a familiar voice said, "Yeah, he is."

Five breaths this time, then another pause. She looked up. "Paul, he's not—" Her voice cracked.

"You want me to take over?"

She shook her head. Five more breaths—no. Three. Three, and Gary's body jerked. She pulled back, letting him suck in air, then turned him on his side so he could cough out water, followed by the contents of his stomach. Toni undid the belt around his wrists, cursing her fumbling fingers. When she finally got his arms free, he tried to push himself up, but Toni put a hand on his chest. "Stay down until they can check you out." She took his hand, rubbing her thumb over his pulse point, as much to assure herself that his heart was still beating as to encourage circulation. "It's okay. You'll be okay," she whispered, and hoped to God it was true.

His eyes fixed on her. In the wash of artificial light it was hard to make out the color, let alone read what he wanted to communicate. "It's okay," she repeated, then let a little of her rage boil over. "How'd they get to you? Didn't you read my note?"

His voice was a ghostly croak. "The horse was the grill. Then it was me."

"You idiot. You might have—" She couldn't finish the sentence. His fingers curled around hers, squeezing tight. 

It felt like hours, but was probably only minutes, before a team of EMTs surrounded them. "Ma'am, we need room to work," one of them said, but she couldn't stand until Paul grabbed her elbow and pulled her up. 

He scooted her a few steps away. One of the medics asked for a history. She blurted out what she knew, and Winslow filled them in on what had been in the banana bread so they'd have a better idea what they were dealing with. Toni shut her eyes against the image her brain wanted to superimpose on the scene, one with a flatlined heart monitor and a body bag. What if she had arrived five minutes later? Five seconds? What if he hadn't found the will to breathe on his own? 

"Toni." The edge in Paul's voice, once she heard him, meant he'd said her name more than once. She pushed rain and her plastered hair out of her face and blinked at him. "You okay?"

Of course she was. She started to tell him as much, but just behind him, the medics were helping Hobson sit up. 

He was moving. He was breathing.

"Toni?"

A traitorous lump had formed in her throat, and nothing could get past it. She gave Paul a quick nod and marched down to the end of the driveway. Wayne and Judy stood against a squad car, hands cuffed behind their backs, surrounded by a semicircle of cops. Nobody had bothered to put them in a car, or even hold an umbrella over them, she noted with satisfaction. Wayne's head was bowed, but Judy's gaze skittered over the cops and swiveled to the side. Beyond the ring of blinking red and blue lights, Toni made out the shapes of her neighbors—Wayne and Judy's neighbors—huddled under umbrellas, watching it all unfold.

Toni waited, vibrating with fury, until they both noticed her in front of them. She forced out a question, the only one she had left. "Why?"

Judy's face went hard as stone, and nearly as smooth. "We were building a better Beverly."

"Fifty years," Wayne said, as if that explained everything.

"How did killing all those people—how would killing him—make anything better? He was your platonic ideal of a neighbor!"

Why hadn't she ever noticed how unnerving Judy's expression could be, the way her eyebrows arched and she always seemed to be looking down her nose at people? "He was with you. That was reason enough."

Toni's fingers curled into her palms. "And Mike Yang? What about Jessica Singer?"

Wayne looked up, his eyes flashing. "That little bitch, coming around with her flyers and her liberal bullshit--"

Judy knocked her elbow into him. "Shut up! We aren't telling her anything else."

Stretching out her fingers, Toni tried to imagine her rage running out the tips and washing away in the rain. Winslow could have told this pair she was much, much scarier when she was calm. "I don't know what's wrong with you," she said coldly. "I don't know why you thought being so vicious and cruel would make this a better neighborhood. I suppose the army of psychologists who'll be interviewing you will have all kinds of theories, but frankly, I don't care. So no, you don't have to say a word. The people you chose to hurt, who they were, what they meant to the people who cared about them--" The ache in her throat sharpened, and she swallowed hard. "If you could know those people, and still hurt them? That tells me everything I need to know."

She turned and searched out Captain Mulcahy among the watching crowd of cops. Jim Byrne was with him. "Their car's in their driveway. There's a box in the back seat that has evidence tying them to all the killings. Thank you," she told Jim. "If you hadn't listened to Aaron Singer, I'm pretty sure Mike would have died last week, and there would have been more after him."

"Just wish I would have seen it sooner," he said. "But I'm mighty glad you're the one they sent. Makes me think CPD's in good hands."

"Good work, Detective." Mulcahy shook her hand, holding it a beat longer to ask, "What about our consultant? He's going to make it, right?"

Toni glanced up the driveway. She couldn't make out what was happening in the tight knot of medics and cops. "I think so. He usually does."

"You'll talk him out of a lawsuit, right?"

"Hell," Jim said, "talk him onto the force. Kid seems to get results."

Toni was spared having to explain why that would be a fairly terrible idea by a shout.

"Nia!" Beyond the yellow tape that roped off the shared driveway and his backyard, Tim Morgan waved at her. "Nia, over here!" He and Mike stood on the sidewalk, wearing robes and slippers and sharing an umbrella. Yellow crime scene tape blocked them out of their own yard. She made her way over to them and ducked under the tape to their side. "Nia, what the hell is going on?"

Tim seemed jumpy, and she didn't blame him. The Healys had tried to kill Hobson in his yard. But Mike—Mike who would have died if it wasn't for Hobson--watched her with a scared, wary expression. She couldn't blame him, either.

"It's Toni, actually." Sooner or later they'd get the whole story and understand, but at the moment she felt a little sheepish admitting she'd lied to them. "Toni Brigatti. I'm with CPD."

"That explains a few things," Mike said.

"The hell it does." But Tim looked her up and down and grabbed her elbow, pulling her under the umbrella with them. "Honey, you're soaked. As soon as they let us back in the house I am making you the hottest toddy of your life."

"We heard the sirens," Mike looked toward the backyard. "They said something happened in the backyard. The rain was too loud, or maybe we would have heard." He peered closely at Toni. Whatever he read in her expression made his eyes go wide. "It was Greg, wasn't it? Is he all right?"

"Gary." The lump swelled in her throat. "His name's Gary, and I think—I don't know, I have to check on him." She took a step back, out of the umbrella's circle, but they followed her into the rain, and before she understood what was happening, she was wrapped up in a double hug. 

"Okay, guys, I need to breathe," she finally said. When they let go, she really could breathe, as though the hug had squeezed the lump right out of her throat.

"Go get that man," Tim teased. He gave her a little push toward the driveway.

Where Hobson was shuffling toward her under his own power. Slowly, and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, but upright and alive. Two medics flanked him, trying to help, but he kept pushing them away. Toni hurried to meet him.

They stopped, face to face, just out of the circles of light at either end of the driveway. He swayed on his feet, and she grabbed his arm. Tried to think of something to say that would get her a grin, or at least a few crinkles around his eyes, but all that came out was, "Hey."

He opened his mouth and croaked. Shut it and swallowed. Tried again. "Nia, honey, I don't know if this is the neighborhood for us."

A giggle—an actual giggle—bubbled up from her stomach. The rain was letting up, which meant anyone standing within a few feet of them could hear. She shook her head. "So much for your consulting gig, huh?"

"Yeah." He tottered again and leaned into her grip on his elbow. 

"Hobson, for God's sake." Paul broke the bubble around them. "These guys are here to help you."

"One gurney, no waiting," quipped one of the medics.

Toni didn't let go of Hobson—she was pretty sure he'd keel over if she did—but she inclined her head toward the end of the driveway, where the crowd of neighbors and cops rivaled the number at the block party. Winslow was just behind Paul, and she was pretty sure Captain Banks was in the crowd. All of them watching, nearly everyone she knew in Chicago. The fishbowl turned inside-out.

Hobson seemed to know what she was thinking. He pulled free of her grip and tried to stand up straight, to take a step back. "Guess we can drop the charade now," he said, but the effort was too much. He lurched to the side.

The medics both moved to catch him, but Toni was faster. She grabbed his elbows and steadied him. Something in his stupid, stubborn expression made her brave. "Yeah, we can drop it." 

His eyes started to narrow, then went wide when she tugged him closer. Throwing out all the rules and every cop instinct she possessed, she kissed him in front of God, the CPD, and Beverly, as deeply and as sure as she'd kissed him in his loft the night before. He staggered into her, she melted into him, and for a few perfect seconds all that mattered was the warmth of his lips, the shared breath that filled their mouths, the taste of the rain. 

When she released him, the medics were there with the gurney, and Paul and Winslow were right behind them. The cop version of Laurel and Hardy. They'd never let her live this down, but at the moment, she wasn't sure she wanted to. 

"Sit," Toni commanded Hobson.

"I don't have to like it," he muttered, but he did. When Toni leaned down and kissed him again, her hands on his face to hold him steady, she could feel his relieved grin. "Thanks for saving my butt."

"Thanks for not dying." She dug her phone out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Call Marissa on your way to the hospital, okay? She's worried about you. You seem to have that effect on people."

"I don't need the hospital."

She ran a finger over the bruises on his face, the new one on his throat. "The hell you don't." Bending close to his ear, she whispered, "I need you back in fighting shape next time I visit your loft." That got her another grin. She nodded to the medics and patted his hand. "Call her. I'll be right behind you."

"You promise?"

"Wild penguins couldn't keep me away."

Once the ambulance doors had slammed shut, Winslow sidled up to her and handed over her gun. "You might want this." 

"Thanks." She narrowed her eyes, waiting. 

"Need a ride?" Paul asked.

Toni crossed her arms. "Let me have it."

The two of them blinked at each other. "What?" Winslow asked. As if he didn't know.

"Whatever snarky shit you have to say about Hobson and me. I want to hear it now." Now, while she was feeling buoyed enough, brave enough, to fight right back. Hobson might be a weirdo and a bit of a dope, but he was her dope.

But Paul shook his head. "I told you, Toni, if this is what you want, you should go for it." He started for the car.

Toni turned to Winslow. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "Far be it from me to stand in the way of true love, or whatever the hell that was." He threw an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the car. "Tell you what though, the next undercover assignment better be mine. I'm tired of you having all the fun."

* * *

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Mike and Tim, the Niceness Ninjas, were inspired by [this tumblr post](http://yotoob.tumblr.com/post/124940000489/yotoob-yotoob-weve-bought-a-new-house-and).
> 
> I stuck as closely as I could to reality for most of this story, but because it _is_ a story, I took a few liberties with geography, police procedure, and medicine. But every word about Cat and the paper is factually correct.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for "A Pretty Good Bad Idea"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6674482) by [Gryph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryph/pseuds/Gryph)




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